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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25189318">Trauma Spy Book Two</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezchuckles/pseuds/chezchuckles'>chezchuckles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Trauma Spy [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Castle (TV 2009)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Trauma Spy, but like in a slip away into the night kind of way, could be seen as suicidal thinking, she thinks they would be better off without her, spy castle - Freeform, warning: trauma beckett does not believe in the value of her own life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:27:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>255,027</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25189318</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezchuckles/pseuds/chezchuckles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuation of Book One.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kate Beckett &amp; Richard Castle, Kate Beckett/Richard Castle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Trauma Spy [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821298</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>57</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She heard the front door open and close, but no voices, no shuffling. The house was too well built for that. She kept her eyes on the boys, willing her heart to slow, her hands to stop shaking.</p><p>The moment Castle walked through the doorway, her heart eased.</p><p>She hadn’t realized how much she counted on him to keep from doing something bad. She did trust him, to some extent, to prevent the worst from happening. He wasn’t going to let her hurt the boys.</p><p>“You’re awake,” he murmured, frowning. His eyes flicked past her. “You found the room.”</p><p>“I can’t sleep,” she explained. She had her back to the stone, the corner of the room, one eye on the cracked-open door of the secret room.</p><p>“Did you go inside?” he said, lips curling. He was - happy? Excited. “I wanted to give you the grand tour but if you-”</p><p>“I couldn’t go inside,” she rasped.</p><p>Castle stalked forward, had her up on her feet before she had even realized he was coming for her. She gasped as her body crashed into his, her left leg numb from sitting awkwardly, and she gripped Castle’s shirt to stay standing.</p><p>“Kate?”</p><p>“Leg’s asleep,” she muttered, tilting her forehead into his jaw, taking a deeper breath. “I know you’re dying to show off your cool secret room.” She tried to angle a smile up to him, and he seemed willing to take it.</p><p>He grinned back, but his arms laced around her waist, hugging her closer than she’d wanted. Her breath stuttered as his lips glanced her cheek. “Yeah, I wanna show you everything.”</p><p>She shivered, his words going right through her, her body’s awareness peaking.</p><p>“Can you walk on it?” His fingers stroked the curve of her ass and down to the crease of her thigh. She swallowed a noise and felt herself arching into him, caught by his arm around her.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, I can walk,” she husked. Her cheeks were flaming. Her simmering anxiety had turned, just that fast, to absolute craven lust.</p><p>“Come on then,” he murmured, taking her hand and tugging. She fell and caught herself, but she followed Castle towards the stone door set beneath the stairs. “You found the button on the end table, I guess, but not the lights?”</p><p>She shook her head mutely, her heart rate kicking up again, but Castle slapped a hand against the top of the door  frame and suddenly there was light.</p><p>She laughed, startled by the spill of fluorescents through the long space. Recessed track lights gave it a studio feel, and the far wall held a security display to rival any secret bunker.</p><p>“Cool, huh?” he said, pride in his voice.</p><p>“Yeah, baby, it’s cool,” she murmured, sliding a smile his way.</p><p>Little boy giddiness danced across his face. “Look at this. The control console has everything. You come in here and it immediately-”</p><p>The door shut and she crashed into him, clutching his shirt, practically climbing his body, and Castle caught her, laughing at first, laughing until he must have seen her face.</p><p>“Shit. Kate. I can open the door. I’ll open-”</p><p>“No, no, no,” she babbled. She was fine. She had to be fine. She had to convince him to let her stay here and that was not going to happen if she couldn’t get a handle on herself. “Surprised me. I didn’t expect it. That’s all. I’m fine.”</p><p>He cupped her face in his hands and searched her eyes, but she gave him the best smile she could, and then surged up on her toes to kiss him. Distract him from her falter.</p><p>Castle groaned and sank his fingers into her hair at her scalp, pulled her closer. His mouth wiped out any trace of the spurt of panic that had sent her into his arms, and the heat of his body against hers only caught her on fire.</p><p>She wound her arm around his neck, craving closeness, the stroke of his tongue. He opened her mouth at that moment, giving her everything she wanted, and her back hit the wall with the force of his drive. She grunted and arched, using the smooth, cool wall for leverage, and got her thigh hiked up around his hip.</p><p>“Fuck me,” he growled.</p><p>“Yes.” Blind, insane, immediate.</p><p>He grunted a laugh; she realized he hadn’t meant it as a command, but it didn’t matter. Her body clamored for him, desperate to prove something, to have him, to touch those places he’d promised only to her.</p><p>“Kate,” he groaned.</p><p>“Where’s the bed?” she mumbled, her hands clutching at his back, rucking up his shirt.</p><p>“Messy, it’s messy, want-”</p><p>She dropped her thigh, plunged her hands into his pants, kneading whatever flesh she found. He groaned and crushed his body to hers, made her breasts tight and aching. She felt his breath skirting her jaw, her neck, his mouth as he bit her skin and nosed down her shirt.</p><p>“You’re not wearing a bra,” he husked.</p><p>“No. And-”</p><p>“Oh, fuck, no panties either. Fuck.”</p><p>“Your boxers,” she amended, but that hardly seemed to matter to him. His fingers caressed her bare ass under the material and she felt the strange flutter of pleasure-pain in her womb.</p><p>“Let me touch you a little, baby,” he murmured. “Please. Please, let me-”</p><p>“Only if you come in my mouth.”</p><p>“Oh, fuck.”</p><p>“Won’t be messy that way. Keep it nice and clean.”</p><p>“Fuck. Fuck. Kate.”</p><p>“I could do that right now,” she promised. “Take you in my mouth.” She let her knees go weak and started to drop, but he clutched her hips and held her up, braced her against his chest and the wall.</p><p>“Not on your knees,” he husked. His eyes traced over her face. “On the bed.”</p><p>“Still be on my knees,” she said, lifting her eyebrows.</p><p>He choked on a laugh, cupped her face suddenly in his wide, warm hands. “Love you, Kate. Everything about you.” And then he kissed her hard before she could respond, tongue pushing deep, body pressed against her.</p><p>She could feel every line of his erection, hard and insistent and somehow grateful. Maybe that was just him, pushing himself into that connection they had, branding her with how very grateful he was.</p><p>There was something tender about his need for her. Something so completely beautiful, a precious thing he put right into her hands, that it surged in her heart like confidence.</p><p>She could do this. </p><p>Kate Beckett, three year survivor of the elixir and John Black’s program, could have this man and give him back some measure of what he gave her. Kate Beckett, with meager life experience and no real sexual prowess, could absolutely be everything for him.</p><p>Castle’s arms shifted under her ass; she pushed up enough to jump him. His grin flashed white across his face and her legs wound around his waist. His kiss was biting, and he brought his teeth down her neck, making her groan, making her grind against him.</p><p>“Careful, love,” he murmured, even as those sharp fingers tugged at her womb. “Don’t hurt yourself.”</p><p>“I’m good, so good, baby,” she mumbled back, sucking his earlobe into her mouth, nipping. Wanting. Rubbing her body against his for more of that feeling.</p><p>He carried her to the bed; she jumped in his arms when he bent her down, arched as her back hit the mattress. It was strangely comfortable, the sheets and coverlet smelled like him, all over his scent, filling her lungs just as his body filled her senses.</p><p>“Not like this,” she grinned, arching against him once more. “I’m on top this time.”</p><p>He narrowed his eyes, his gaze sweeping down her body. “Only if you’re naked.”</p><p>She laughed, scraped her nails up his back as she released him. “Only if you’re the one undressing me.”</p><p>He grinned back and dived down for her mouth again, his kiss hot, fierce, overwhelming. Everything was gone when he kissed her like this.</p><p>Whited out with him. He was the only thing she knew. And in that intensity of heat and tongues and bodies, she also knew-</p><p>she would never hurt him here. Could never hurt him. It was impossible for her to even find her trauma when Castle was touching her.</p><p>His hands skimmed the boxers down her legs and she moaned, her belly fluttering with feeling. Tightening. Contracting.</p><p>A burst of dazzling light and a sharp stab of agony, and then a flood of heat. Her eyes dragged open and tripped along the contours of his face, sweet and fierce, soft and hard.</p><p>He massaged her thighs and her flanks, framed her waist as he pushed her shirt up her body. She lifted and allowed him to strip her naked, and then she wound her legs around his waist and dragged him down to her.</p><p>She had done something, inside; she had done something to herself she didn’t know what. But it felt so very good.</p><p>She wrapped her arms around his torso and pressed his wide and strong heat to herself, his shirt gone somehow already, moaning as his cargo shorts rubbed her inside thighs.</p><p>“I want you,” she got out, breathing fast against his ear, his jaw, his mouth. “I want you now.”</p><p>“Climb on top of me, Kate, honey.” </p><p>She battled against his limbs, both of them on the narrow cot, got herself perched on top of him. His hands stroked up and down her thighs, shivers of pleasure pinging in her guts. His grin widened, and he caught her chin in his hand as she moved to go down on him.</p><p>“No, baby, not like that.”</p><p>She stared at him, at a loss. “Not...?”</p><p>“Turn around, Kate. I want to smell you, press you right against my face as you take me in your mouth.”</p><p>Oh, fuck.</p><p>She was completely unprepared for Rick Castle in so many ways.</p><p>-----</p><p>He was out of his mind.</p><p>She had perched elegantly on his chest, the long slope of her back rising up before him, the wet heat between her legs rubbing his abs as she had opened his pants. He had thought he could do this, he had thought he could handle it.</p><p>But the second her hand had pulled him out of his shorts, he had lost it.</p><p>Unable to see her face, unable to even see her hand on him, only feeling what she did to him, the movement and pressure, the swirl and suck-</p><p>His hips punched the air as she popped off his cock. His growl started in his chest and made her shiver, but she rocked her hips against him, distracted him entirely with the fresh bloom of arousal in his face.</p><p>He lifted his head and kissed the crease of her ass cheeks, licked at the cream dripping from   her sex. She mewled - around his cock - and he groaned into the taste of her, eyes slamming shut.</p><p>Her body was vicious against his, all sensual movement and slick heat. He wanted so badly to be inside her, the tight glove of her body, but the moment her mouth slid down him, he was transported.</p><p>“Kate,” he shouted, shaking. The intensity of her mouth, oh fuck, the tight closeness of her soft palette, her tongue, the way his cock seemed to be cradled in her mouth.</p><p>He gripped her bent thighs, his thumbs pressing her open. She moaned around his cock and he gasped even as his lips touched her sex. Her shudder made him drop his head back to the cot, beyond his ability to move.</p><p>She palmed his balls and he cursed, hips jerking without his say. She gagged on his cock but swallowed him, swallowed hard, working for it, but he was too big to go down her throat.</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>She licked his shaft as she released him from her mouth, scraped her teeth against the slit at his head. He bellowed in response, blindly grateful for the damn panic room and its sound suppression.</p><p>She suckled on his tip and swirled back down his shaft, her fingers working at his base now in concert. She had the rhythm of it, she had discovered a definite fucking skill, and he had to screw up his face and grip her tightly to hold on.</p><p>He could barely offer her anything in return. But the fucking rich smell of her in his face was intoxicating. How wet she was, sucking him off, how her hips ground against his chest, her breasts at his pelvis, entirely erotic. The slide of sweat and sex, her mouth tight and hot around him.</p><p>“Kate,” he panted. “Kate, oh, fuck, sweetheart, I’m close.” </p><p>He fumbled at her thigh, almost reached between them to finger her, remembered at the last second he couldn’t. His hand curved her ribs, caressed her back, landed heavily at her spine. He realized he was pushing her down, and she was moaning around him, working her hips harder and faster-</p><p>“Fuck, fuck, Kate. S-stop. Don’t hurt yourself, fuck, oh hell, oh-” His breath caught, as if snatched from him, his eyes slammed shut, and his balls coiled so tight he cried out.</p><p>His orgasm ripped out of his guts and burst from his cock and straight down her throat. He ground his hips into her face as she kneaded his ass, and he held on tightly, as fiercely as he could, feeling like his whole world was sliding sideways, off axis, flinging him out into space.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle petted the smooth sides of her flanks again and again until he could drag himself back to the world. Her ass was still in his face and he grinned, squeezed her thighs. “Come on up here, love.”</p><p>Her cheek was against his hipbone, one of her hands stroking up and down his thigh. She twitched at the sound of his voice and kissed the base of his cock, making him twitch too. He felt her smile as she dragged it up his belly, and then she sat upright and glanced over her shoulder at him.</p><p>He stroked his hands up her back, brushing aside her hair. “Hey, baby. You’re amazing.”</p><p>She gave him that Mona Lisa smile, closed-lipped, secretive. He wrapped his hand around her hair and tugged, and she came, sliding sideways to lay over him. </p><p>“You... still buzzing?” he murmured. Seemed inelegant to say you didn’t come, did you? </p><p>“I’m good,” she sighed softly. “Feel good.”</p><p>He scratched his fingers at the base of her skull and nudged a kiss to her forehead. “Me too. Feel - damn, Kate - feel really good. Understatement.”</p><p>She hummed something against his chest, drawing designs between his nipples that only made his cock stir. He tried to keep it down, tried to ignore the resurrection of his desire, but her hand was fucking erotic. He clasped his over hers and trapped it there, breathing hard.</p><p>“This is a fun room,” she murmured.</p><p>He grinned. “Mm, glad you think so, love.”</p><p>“Safe.”</p><p>“Yeah, that’s the plan.” He felt like he should be paying attention to something in her tone, but his brain was scattered. His cock was a heavy weight against his thigh, and she nudged her knee up and brushed him as if she knew it. “It’s - ah - it’s a safe place in case someone followed us here. But no one ever has. It’s all safe. All safe. Promise.”</p><p>“And the switch beside the bed opens it up for you.”</p><p>“Mm, that’s one of them. Also one above the stairs. That gets the lights.”</p><p>She rubbed her lips at his chest, her tongue touching him lightly. “And the - oh, the one above the door itself?”</p><p>“Mm, yeah.” He grunted and gripped her hand tighter, but it was no use. His cock was stirring, and she was rubbing her body against his, lips and knee and thigh.</p><p>“What’s all the computers for?”</p><p>“To - to check. Ah. Shit, Kate. Check everything. Cameras on the perimeter.”</p><p>“No cameras in the house?”</p><p>“No, no, no,” he mumbled, reaching down to grip her knee. His heart was pounding.</p><p>Kate shifted to rise above him and he stared up at her, blinded by the beauty of her body, the sheer brilliance of her face, those eyes that saw forever. </p><p>“Kate,” he breathed.</p><p>She shifted on his abdominals and rode back to his pelvis. He grunted and gripped her hips, trying to keep her from thrusting, but before he could even stop her, his cock was trapped against her sex.</p><p>“Kate, fuck, no, baby. Wait.” He struggled upright, trying to move her off of his cock. “Honey, please, hang on. You’re on pelvic rest, sweetheart.” He gripped her, shifted her up to the hard ridge of his abs, and she shivered even with that. “Okay, okay, calm down, we gotta calm down, baby.”</p><p>He kissed her cheek, her neck, arms wrapped around her to keep her still, keep her from moving, rocking, thrusting. If she shifted one inch, one little movement down, he’d be penetrating her sex.</p><p>He really couldn’t do that. She couldn’t do that.</p><p>“Stay right here, love, stay right here.”</p><p>“I know,” she whispered. “But I feel so-”</p><p>“I don’t want to hurt you,” he husked. “I can’t hurt you just for this.”</p><p>“I like this-”</p><p>“I know, oh God, sweetheart, I know you do. But it’s not a good idea. We can do so much else, honey, you know? We can get really creative, and it’ll be so good.”</p><p>She shivered against his chest and pulled her knees in hard at his ribs. He stroked his hand down her back and pushed her hair off her shoulder, kissed the soft skin at her neck. </p><p>“Castle,” she murmured.</p><p>“I don’t want to hurt you. Wait until you’re healed, love.”</p><p>“I don’t want to hurt you either,” she whispered.</p><p>“You’re not, I promise. You’re not hurting me. This is good, feels good-”</p><p>“But.” Her hands fisted at his spine. “Can’t you let me stay in here?”</p><p>Castle stiffened.</p><p>“Please,” she whispered. “Please, let me just stay in here. I can’t stand to think of hurting you after - after everything that... please.”</p><p>“Kate,” he grunted, burying his face in her neck. “Kate. Baby.”</p><p>“I don’t want to hurt you, Castle. It’ll be easier, easier for me. I can’t sleep knowing I might - do something. But if I’m in here, I’m safe. You said it, you said it was your safe place, and I just want to be safe.”</p><p>He groaned, clutching her hips, holding her tighter, harder. She couldn’t beg him like that; he found himself wanting to cave to her, desperate to give her exactly what she pleaded for.</p><p>Her arms came up, her hands cupped his face. Her kiss was desperate, rough, a slide of her lips against his before her teeth clashed against his own. He grunted into the feel and taste of her, but already her mouth moved to his jaw, back to his ear.</p><p>“Please, love,” she whispered.</p><p>His heart broke. “Okay, okay, okay,” he soothed. “We’ll - try this. We’ll try.”</p><p>-----</p><p>The moment he agreed, her whole body sank into the cot.</p><p>Into him.</p><p>She could hear his heart pounding under her ear, but she closed her eyes, so relieved that exhaustion instantly overtook her, dragging at her.</p><p>She couldn’t fall asleep. Not while he was here. “Castle,” she mumbled.</p><p>“I already said I would,” he sighed. “I’ll try, Kate.”</p><p>She struggled to push herself up, to get him going, out of here, but he only combed his fingers through her hair and cupped the side of her face. It made the whole thing impossible, it was impossible to move at all, and she groaned, a whine in her throat.</p><p>“Oh, honey, you’re so tired. Just sleep. I promised you. I won’t go back on my word.”</p><p>“Don’t let me sleep,” she mumbled. “Won’t hurt you.”</p><p>“You won’t hurt me, you can’t hurt me.”</p><p>She whined, trying to drag her eyes open. “Fall asleep and you can’t - stop me if-”</p><p>“I’m not tired. I’ll be awake.” He stroked the back of her head, hugged her closer. “I’m awake for a while, sweetheart. Feel me? Not gonna fall asleep with that.”</p><p>She moaned into the nudge of his hips against hers, the thickening of his cock. She could do absolutely nothing about it. Her weariness was so extreme, her body was shutting down. She wasn’t sure what would come when she slept.</p><p>“Don’t let me hurt you,” she mumbled.</p><p>“I won’t let you hurt me,” he whispered. Her bones liquified, her body slack. He rubbed her back, slowly, up and down, her muscles twitching as she dropped towards sleep.</p><p>She didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t know what happened when she slept, when she couldn’t control it. She didn’t want to-</p><p>“You won’t hurt me. Look, honey, it’s okay. I’m getting up. I’m right here beside the bed.”</p><p>Her cheek was mashed into the cot, her eyelids refused to open. Her body was so heavy, and now the residual flickers of pleasure were sliding away, falling away, until it was only the ache in her womb, the deep ache.</p><p>“I got you, sweetheart. You’re okay. You can’t hurt me.” Soft strokes in her hair, down her back. Soft strokes. His lips against her bare shoulder. “I promise. Sleep. You can sleep.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle crept out of the panic room and put his hand between the door and the frame to prevent its closing. She had made him promise to let her sleep safely, but he didn’t like it whatsoever. </p><p>But he had promised, and if she was going to trust him, he had to be a man of his word.</p><p>When the door rebounded against his hand and stayed, he let go and eased his way to the bed to check on the boys. If Kate was worried about hurting them, he should probably carry them upstairs, put them to bed. With the staircase and the gate in the way, he could definitely take her before she got to them.</p><p>Castle slid a t-shirt over his head and found a clean pair of boxers in the closet. He tossed another t-shirt to the back of the chair to remind himself to bring it in to her later, and then he turned for the bed.</p><p>James had fallen asleep first, so Castle reached for him, being careful to prevent the boy from waking. James curled into his chest, a floppy thing, like the bunny Wyatt loved. Which reminded him - he would need to find that rag doll. He didn’t think James would be okay if he woke and it wasn’t there.</p><p>He climbed the stairs slowly with his precious cargo, glancing down towards the open door to be sure it stayed that way. When he reached the gate, he stepped over, the boy shifting slightly in his arms. James mewled and rubbed his face against Castle’s shirt, but he fell back to sleep instantly, if he had ever been truly awake.</p><p>Castle laid the boy in the bed, softly palming the top of his head, the fine-as-silk hair that curled at his ears. He leaned in and kissed the rosy cheek, felt the warmth of the boy’s skin at his lips. He brushed back the boy’s hair from his forehead, kissed him again because at least someone could sleep.</p><p>He sighed and stood up again, made his way downstairs, being careful to go quietly. At the bed again, he found Wyatt curled up with his bottom in the air, drooling in the middle of the bed. He scooped up his son, a little more roughly than he’d meant to, but Wyatt didn’t even stir.</p><p>He trooped upstairs once more and made it to the boys’ bed, reminding himself once again that he needed to get a second bed. He laid the boy down beside his brother and drew the blanket over him, did the same to James. He glanced through the bed, sticking his hand down the side of the mattress in search of their nightly toys.</p><p>He couldn’t find them.</p><p>Damn.</p><p>Castle turned his back on the bed and scanned the dark room, his eyes well-adjusted to the lack of light. There were toys all over the floor: two rubbery basketballs and a couple of foam baseballs, a handful of matchbox cars, a stack of blocks half knocked over, dump trucks with their loads filled. No bunny, no rag doll. Neither rag doll, actually.</p><p>He was a damn CIA agent. He could find a few stuffed animals.</p><p>Castle moved quietly down the stairs once more and made quick work of searching his bedroom. He discovered both the rag dolls hidden under the bed, and he tucked them under his arm. When he got to the living room, he spotted the bunny under the kitchen table.</p><p>Whew. That was easy enough.</p><p>Castle took the stuffed animals back upstairs again, hurrying now because he had a good idea. The bunny was easily inserted into the crook of Wyatt’s arm, but James had huddled into the corner of the bed, his back to his brother, very little room for the rag doll.</p><p>And it mattered which one he was given. Castle might not be much more than a week-old parent, but he knew that much.</p><p>So he risked the consequences and woke the boy up.</p><p>“James,” he murmured, squeezing the baby’s shoulder and getting his fingers under James’s neck. He tilted the kid up a little bit, easing him away from his comfortable bed, holding out the almost identical toys Kate had made from a sweatshirt. “James, hey, I’m sorry, I know. So tired. Look, sweet boy, I’ve got your rag doll.”</p><p>James, bleary-eyed, mewling those pitiful noises, reached automatically for his rag doll and snuggled up with it, bringing it close into his chest. Castle gently lowered him back to the mattress, shushing him softly, stroking his hair.</p><p>James’s doll was the one with the sleeve cuff like a knot in the middle, almost a face or snout. The rag doll, misshapen and lumpy, looked more like a wolf, actually.</p><p>Castle softly kissed his son and stood once more, headed out of the boys’ room and towards the stairs. The light of the stars poured in through the massive windows on either side of the bed, and he could see the gleam of metal from the door this far above. When he went down the stone steps, he turned immediately for the chair, yanking the shirt from the back, and eased inside the panic room.</p><p>Kate was still lying prone on the bed, her face mashed into the mattress much like James’s had been. He grinned and came forward slowly, sank down to his haunches before her.</p><p>He slipped two fingers into the bend of her elbow, her fist just under her cheek beginning to shift as he moved her arm. Castle held his breath when she mewled, sounding almost exactly like James, but she didn’t wake.</p><p>He slid the rag doll into her arm and let go of her, leaving her to settle back into the cot. </p><p>Kate sighed and curled into the rag of her own sweatshirt, something she’d made in secret for two babies she was barely able to see, let alone love. </p><p>She was an amazing woman. She had done so much for them, for his sons, her sons, and she still fought, every day, to be more.</p><p>He cupped the back of her head and leaned in to kiss her cheek.</p><p>Kate gasped and came awake, a startled cry on her lips.</p><p>“You’re okay, it’s okay,” he promised, pressing his hand over hers, keeping her down as lightly as he could. “I’ve got you. See? I’ve got you, Kate.”</p><p>She sucked in a rattling breath, and he could feel her heart pounding so hard it shook the cot. “Cas-tle.”</p><p>“You’re okay. I’ve got you.” He laid a hand to the back of her head and brushed the hair out of her face. </p><p>“Don’t let me fall asleep,” she mumbled. “Don’t want to hurt you.”</p><p>“Honey, it’s really rather arrogant to think you could hurt me, half-asleep and exhausted as you are. You know that?”</p><p>“What?” she mumbled.</p><p>He hummed a little laugh and kissed the corner of her eye. “Nothing, love. You’re fine. Sleep. You need some sleep. Exhaustion is only going to put you on the edge.”</p><p>“I can’t fall asleep if you’re in here,” she choked out. “I can’t. I can’t trust myself. I can’t-”</p><p>“Then trust me.”</p><p>She mewled and curled her body in on itself, burying her face in her knees. He sat up a little straighter, leaned in over her. She was shaking, but he saw her startle and uncoil, her hand coming up with the rag doll.</p><p>“I...” She blinked, and then stared up at him.</p><p>He gave her a tight smile. “Thought you could use something, anything. Here, I brought a clean shirt for you to sleep in. You want to slip it on? There’s no heat in here. I’ll bring in your pillow, the blankets, and I’ll sleep on the floor-”</p><p>“No!” She jerked upright, swaying immediately, the color leaving her face. He caught her before she could topple over, gripping her shoulders. “No, Castle, don’t - if you’re in here, then it’s pointless. It’s useless, I’m not-”</p><p>“Okay,” he insisted, cupping the back of her neck and scanning her body with a fast look. She was still trembling, goose bumps rising on her arms. “Okay, Kate. Alright, honey. Let me at least help you with the shirt.”</p><p>She let him maneuver her arms through the sleeves, her head through the hole, but something had gone flat in her eyes. Shut down again. That far away distance that completely kicked him out of her world.</p><p>He’d seen it in those first few days after he’d found her in the facility, but he hadn’t seen it in so long that it seemed worse now. Terrible.</p><p>Terrifying.</p><p>With her hands slack in her lap, her eyes blank, she sat docilely on the cot, as if waiting for whatever happened next. It was a peculiar kind of retreat, and it scared him.</p><p>But he knew it was his fault. He’d pushed her too hard, too far, and she was both exhausted and on the edge.</p><p>Castle stood up, sliding an arm behind her knees and the other at her neck, and he laid her down on the cot. The rag doll had fallen, but he tucked it back into her arm again and drew the scratchy sheet and blanket up over her body.</p><p>And then he moved for the door.</p><p>“Close it all the way,” she scraped out.</p><p>He turned in the doorway, hands dangling uselessly at his sides. “I can’t do that.”</p><p>“You have to. I can’t be trusted. You have-”</p><p>“If I shut the door with a warm body in the panic room, I can’t open it again.”</p><p>“What?” she croaked.</p><p>“You’re the only one who can open it, from inside.”</p><p>She curled up tighter. “Shut the door.”</p><p>“Kate.”</p><p>“You have to. I can’t sleep. I won’t sleep if I can’t be sure-”</p><p>“Kate, please.”</p><p>“Shut the door.”</p><p>“I won’t sleep. Let me be the one who doesn’t sleep,” he begged, taking two steps into the room. </p><p>She jerked backwards, scuttling on the mattress, and he saw real fear in her eyes.</p><p>“Kate. I can’t open the door if you’re in here.”</p><p>“That’s good. I need to be safe.”</p><p>He closed his eyes, wounded to the soul by that statement. Even though he knew she was saying it to get him to agree with her, to shut the door. </p><p>He still couldn’t take the chance that it was true, that she didn’t feel safe with the door open. Maybe her anxiety was due, in large part, to being free.</p><p>That shut down mode. She needed the chance to sleep without worrying that something would happen in the night.</p><p>“Kate-”</p><p>“Please. Oh, God, please.”</p><p>He made a fist and tried desperately to think of some other way. The only thing he could come up with was the bright and glaring hole in her logic: if she was the only one who could open the panic room door, then that didn’t mean she was locked inside. It meant that she could, at any given moment, suffer a panic attack and let herself out - absolutely free to do damage to anyone in her path.</p><p>But if he said that, what solace would she have at all?</p><p>He didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that she was, in fact, not truly locked up.</p><p>“Please, Castle. I-”</p><p>“Fine,” he said quickly, his heart thundering. “Fine. I - I’m shutting the door. Kate. Look at me. This the button, here, to get out. You see it?”</p><p>She nodded, really looking at him, finally meeting his eyes. He slapped his palm just above the panel that released the door, once more for good measure. She jumped both times at the crack of his hand.</p><p>“This is how you open the door. Kate. I need you to say you understand, because there is no other way to open it once you’re in here.”</p><p>“I understand,” she croaked. Her eyes flitted to the button.</p><p>He let out a breath and nodded, and then he slipped out of the panic room before it could register with her what it meant.</p><p>She could get out. She could still get out.</p><p>She wasn’t caged.</p><p>He closed the panic room door, sealing her off from everything, everything he wanted for her.</p><p>-----</p><p>“Well, that was a damn fucking stupid idea.” </p><p>Castle growled and punched his brother in the knee, only place he could reach from his position on the floor. Colin rocked on his feet but came down to sit with him, leaning back against the bed to stare at the closed, invisible door.</p><p>“You don’t have guns stored away in there, do you?”</p><p>Castle startled. “No. Hell, no. Why’d you think-” He scrubbed a hand down his face and sighed. “You have guns in yours.”</p><p>“Of course. Last stand.”</p><p>“It’s not a last stand, Colin. Fucking hell. It’s a retreat. It’s a safe place where no one can get to us. Either of us.” </p><p>“If they got this far, came at us here...” Colin shrugged, avoided his brother’s gaze.</p><p>Castle stared at him. Colin had wildly different intentions for that damn panic room. Castle had envisioned an entrenched attack, holing up for days, even weeks inside, waiting out whatever came. </p><p>Colin had his weapons inside the bunker. For the day when he ended it.</p><p>“I won’t be taken alive,” Colin said then, as if it was fait accompli. </p><p>“Damn it,” Castle grunted, tilting his head back to the mattress. He could still see the door from here, the immovable and inviolate door. He had come to despise the damn panic rooms. Both of them.</p><p>Wait.</p><p>Castle jerked his head upright. “Your panic room,” he breathed.</p><p>Colin grinned. “Waiting for you to get there.” </p><p>“They’re wired.” Castle stared dumbly at the stone, still not able to grasp the ways in which he had so badly miscalculated, and then, on top of that, to have forgotten. “We hooked them up to each other. Fucking hell, and you let me just sit here.”</p><p>Colin was chuckling at him even as he stood again, offering his brother a hand. Castle slapped it out of his face and stood on his own, racing up the stairs and jumping the gate. He didn’t hear his brother behind him, but Colin was probably going around the more respectable way.</p><p>Castle slid through the boy’s room, opened the door that led to the hall along the parapet. He raced across, barely looking at the view, and opened the far door to the game room. When he came down the far stairs into his brother’s room, the piles of junk stacked against the walls gave him pause.</p><p>Colin came through at that moment, hands on his hips. “You know how to open it?”</p><p>“You know I don’t,” Castle growled.</p><p>Colin’s lips twitched.</p><p>“Damn it, Colin. This isn’t the time. If she has a panic attack in there-”</p><p>“Fine, fine, hold your horses,” he muttered. Colin moved to the traffic signal that hung against the stone steps, jerked the light on. Red. He yanked the pull chain again and it flashed to yellow, and once more until it was green.</p><p>The door clicked and came open, but there were stacks of photographs and framed posters in the way. Castle hurried forward and dragged them away, moving machinery parts and propellers, photographs Colin had enlarged, black and whites, even an old rotary phone. When the door was clear, a sigh of stale air came through the crack and Castle pulled the whole thing wide open.</p><p>“Do you never keep this up?” Castle muttered.</p><p>“Beggars can’t be choosers, brother. Here’s the damn room.”</p><p>Castle pushed his way inside and went to the control panel, started flipping things on. They had wired their panic rooms individually, of course, air and computer systems and everything. But Castle had been the one to come up with the plans, to work out all the kinks. He knew what to do.</p><p>He had the monitors up and running in moments, the cameras steady on each of the spots along the perimeter. But the one camera he cared about was...</p><p>Not here.</p><p>“Colin.”</p><p>“Here, it’s right here,” his brother muttered, pushing past him. He sat down at the chair before the panel and logged into some complicated thing Castle didn’t remember being part of the plans.</p><p>“How’d you get that?” he muttered. </p><p>“Ben,” Colin said shortly.</p><p>“Ben knows about our house?”</p><p>“No,” Colin muttered. “Course not. But I posed a hypothetical. And not only do I have a camera on your girl, but if she wakes, you could talk to her.”</p><p>Castle sank to the cot, staring at the image on the main monitor. Kate Beckett. Curled up on the identical cot in his panic room, the rag doll pressed against her face.</p><p>“Talk to her,” he said numbly.</p><p>Kate.</p><p>“Wirelessly. Promise I didn’t compromise the integrity of your panic room.”</p><p>“Wirelessly.”</p><p>“New thing, the computer in here is connected to yours in there. An intranet.”</p><p>Oh. “Talk to her on the computer,” he sighed. But he had eyes on her. He could see her. She wasn’t moving, but she wasn’t having a panic attack either.</p><p>“I’ll leave you to it. Don’t shut the door, case those kids start crying.”</p><p>Castle shook his head, watching the monitor. “No, of course not. Won’t shut the door.” He dragged his gaze away and glanced to his brother. “Thanks, Colin.”</p><p>Colin looked to the control console and shook his head. “Yeah, just call me an enabler.”</p><p>-----</p><p>He watched her wring her hands and rock. He watched her pace for an hour. He watched her curl herself into a compact ball and wedge herself into the farthest corner of the panic room - thankfully directly across from the camera trained on the computer console.</p><p>He watched her sob herself to sleep.</p><p>It was two twenty-two in the morning, and Kate was finally asleep. </p><p>He sank back in the chair and covered his eyes with a hand. Pinching the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb, he took a deep breath, and then he dropped his hand and faced it again. She was still that small, curled up, feral thing in the corner of the room.</p><p>He leaned forward and touched the harsh line of her hunched shoulders, stroked as if she could feel it. And then he dropped his hand and persisted in vigilance.</p><p>He heard Colin coming in, the clink of his junk yard shifting on its foundation, and then what he assumed was his brother going to bed.</p><p>At three, one of her knees dropped and she startled, but she did completely wake. He saw her eyes flare open, swift and fearful, but instead of sitting up straight or shaking it off, she slumped and seemed to slide down the wall.</p><p>Now she was flat on her side with her hair curtaining her face. He couldn’t see her eyes or the furrow in her brow, but he saw the twitch as her body had trouble settling.</p><p>After fifteen minutes more, she went still.</p><p>Castle’s eyes burned as he stared at her image, willing her breaths to lift her chest in a discernible way. Finally, he detected the rise of her shoulder, the dip of her clavicle again as she breathed out.</p><p>Breathing.</p><p>It was a good sign.</p><p>Very good sign.</p><p>He leaned back in his chair, breathed himself. </p><p>Castle moved to the cot, glad it was so close to the main monitor, and studied the video. The rise and fall of her elbow was his only indication of her continued breathing, but it came. Regularly.</p><p>It kept coming, and he watched, his eyes tracing the pixels’ fluctuation that was her breathing.</p><p>He had no idea how long it was, staring at the monitor, when Colin came into the room, yawning and shaking his head like a dog. “Yo, my watch, big brother.”</p><p>Castle blinked, felt the grit in his eyes. “What?”</p><p>“I’ve had five hours’ sleep, you’ve got none.”</p><p>“I’m okay,” he scraped out, blinking again to get moisture around his eyeballs. </p><p>“You had a wound in your back only twenty-four hours ago. You still gotta sleep. More than nothing, at least.”</p><p>Castle roused to drag in a long breath. “I...”</p><p>“Listen to me, Castle. If she leaves that room to find you looking like this-”</p><p>“Shit,” he sighed, swallowing hard. “Right. I...”</p><p>“Let me take watch. Four hours at least. You need it. Especially if you want to convince me that you’re capable enough to prevent her from doing you damage.”</p><p>He growled and scrubbed both hands down his face. “Alright. Fine. I’ll get four. Wake me at-” Castle paused to glance at his watch and gaped. It was already five in the morning. “No. Not four hours. I can’t-”</p><p>“Yes. You sleep in your damn bed, and I’ll come wake you the second she stirs.”</p><p>“Nine o’clock is too late-”</p><p>“Nine is just right. She hasn’t slept either, you know.”</p><p>He shook his head, scratched at his scalp seeking clarity. “Damn it.”</p><p>“She’ll sleep, you’ll sleep. You’ll all sleep-”</p><p>“The boys,” he muttered. Shit. “I’ll have to-”</p><p>“Let them sleep. And if they wake up, let them play in the room. They got plenty of shit up there.”</p><p>He shouldn’t let them sit in their wet diapers all morning just because he wanted to sleep. He frowned at his brother. “Shouldn’t. I’ll set an alarm-”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Colin-”<br/>“Just fucking leave it, Castle. For one fucking morning. You nearly died. You would have died, all because of her. Because of this girl that I’m gonna sit here and watch with the same fucking vigilance you’ve shown the last eight hours.”</p><p>Castle’s jaw dropped, but Colin leaned in and grabbed Castle’s feet, yanked him. Castle came off the cot, catching himself on the edge at the last second. But he stood up, his back popping as he straightened.</p><p>But no twinge, no latent stiffness. He really was fine - the elixir had done its job. Castle had never suffered ill consequences from the program, not like his brothers. So while Colin was right - he ought to sleep - he could survive without it.</p><p>But it wouldn’t be pretty this morning, especially not having to follow around two boys, and deal with whatever were the results of Kate’s night in the panic room.</p><p>That decided him.</p><p>“Fine,” he gritted out. “I’m going to bed.” He moved out of the panic room and stood before Colin’s bed, staring down at the rumpled sheets. He had no idea if Colin ever washed them.</p><p>“Your bed, asshole. Not mine.”</p><p>-----</p><p>She had no idea what time it was, only that she was cold.</p><p>Kate shifted, wincing when icicles broke off inside her, sharp little stabs. She pushed off the floor and shivered violently, smacked her cheek against the angled leg of the cot.</p><p>She should have gotten under the damn covers.</p><p>She dragged herself upright and leaned her head back against the wall, breathing carefully. Something was being pulled sharply inside her. A tug of her deep places. She’d had this feeling a few times before, but now she recognized why.</p><p>The effects of the D&amp;C. Must have been. Must be now.</p><p>Kate pressed her fist into her stomach, knuckling against the sharp spot, caught her breath against the pain. Pain that twitched her legs, clawed her thigh muscles.</p><p>She was frozen through and yet her guts felt hot.</p><p>“Castle,” she croaked, gripping the edge of the cot. The metal was cold against her fingers, debilitating. She shuffled her feet to the floor, pushed herself upright.</p><p>Only to double over, cramping.</p><p>Oh, God. Not good.</p><p>Kate planted her fists in the cot and held herself up, using the wall for leverage, the angle of the room to pitch her back against the corner. She dredged her lungs for a breath and closed her eyes.</p><p>“Castle,” she mumbled.</p><p>And then remembered.</p><p>She was in the panic room. She was locked out. He wasn’t here.</p><p>Kate tilted her head back and opened her eyes, put out a shaky hand to the wall. She had slept some, and she hadn’t attacked anyone. She was going to consider it a win.</p><p>After a time, she straightened up. Fully upright. Took a tentative step forward. Better. She used the ledge of the security station with its monitors and computers to keep her balance, keep her going, and she scanned the displays for a time.</p><p>Almost eight.</p><p>Wow. Okay. She had slept a lot more than she’d expected. There had been wakeful times in between when she’d thought she was going to spiral into a panic attack, but on the whole, it wasn’t so bad. Except for whatever tugging this was in her guts.</p><p>Cramping again. She had to stop, doubled over, hands on her knees.</p><p>She took a slow breath and straightened up again, slowly, and then moved for the door. </p><p>Oh, right. The button. She tilted her head and glanced at the panel, realized with a sigh that if she could get out then it wasn’t exactly being locked up, was it? Why hadn’t that occurred to her last night?</p><p>Exhaustion. Panic. All of it. It didn’t give her much confidence in the decisions they’d made last night about this.</p><p>She lifted her hand, wincing as it tugged on a string in her guts. Her fingers hovered above the panel, deliberating.</p><p>Without her actually meaning to, her hand slapped the button to open the panic room.</p><p>Almost like she’d had to.</p><p>The door swung open violently and Kate startled, her eyes caught by the sight before her. Castle reached in and grabbed her up, bringing her off of her feet and into his body.<br/>“What’s wrong?” he husked. “What’s wrong, Kate?”</p><p>She froze, a fistful of his shirt in her grip, squirmed ineffectually. “Castle.”</p><p>“I saw you on the monitor. In Colin’s panic room. I saw you, Kate. What’s wrong?”</p><p>Kate sucked in a breath, wincing as it set off a resultant twinge in her womb. “Just stiff. Cold.”</p><p>“More than that, Kate. It was more than that.” He was standing in the threshold of the panic room, gripping her so hard she felt light-headed. “Please tell me.”</p><p>“I... just hurt. Slept on the floor. Stupid of me.”</p><p>He cupped the back of her head and gently set her on her feet. “Doubled over in pain isn’t from sleeping on the floor.” </p><p>“How’d you see... how long have you been standing out here waiting on me?”</p><p>“A while,” he whispered. His arms finally loosened, let go of her.</p><p>She stumbled, and then she was nearly down, her equilibrium all off entirely. But Castle caught her, pulled her back up to her feet, tight against his chest.</p><p>“Kate?” Horror swept over his face and one of his hands came up, fingers spread. Bloodied. “You’re bleeding. Kate.”</p><p>Oh. Oh, that made a lot more sense.</p><p>She was bleeding.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“It’s already stopped bleeding,” she said again.</p><p>Castle ignored her, pacing the living room as he pressed the phone to his ear. </p><p>“It’s not bleeding anymore, Castle.”</p><p>“You’re going to a doctor,” he growled. “The OB. A week and a half early. You’d have been going anyway, Kate.”</p><p>She sighed, and although she wasn’t bleeding between her legs anymore, she didn’t try to get off the couch. He was on the phone with a doctor’s office right now. Local-ish, local enough that the drive wouldn’t be far. He couldn’t trust Alex; this was the best he could do.</p><p>When he turned to pace back, his heart clenched. She was curled up on the couch, an arm slung low at her stomach, but she was kissing Wyatt’s face in some kind of game. Silliness. The boy was standing before the couch, a grip on the cushion, his nose to hers.</p><p>James was at Castle’s feet, he realized. He squatted down and hooked an arm around the kid, brought him up against his chest with a squeeze. James burrowed into his side. </p><p>The boy had been ghosting him. Pacing the floor as well while Castle was on hold.</p><p>“Poor kid,” he murmured.</p><p>A click sounded over the line. “Thank you for holding. How can we help you?”</p><p>“Yes, ma’am, my name is Josh Riley. My wife and I are on vacation, but she needs an emergency appointment for today if possible. She had a D&amp;C a few weeks ago, and she’s bleeding.”</p><p>Kate had propped herself upright; she hissed his name.</p><p>“Let me check what we have, Mr Riley. Hang on one moment.”</p><p>“Castle,” Kate called. “I don’t need-”</p><p>“You might not, but I do. I need to know you’re ok. Just do it for me, Kate. Please.”</p><p>She sank back against the corner of the couch, her fingers lightly combing through Wyatt’s hair. She studied him, and he studied her, unwilling to give way.</p><p>“Sir?”</p><p>“Yes,” he said 	quickly, juggling James in his arms.</p><p>“How heavy is the bleeding?”</p><p>He blanked, glanced up at Kate. “How - heavy is the bleeding, Kate?”</p><p>She narrowed her eyes at him. “Spotting.”</p><p>“She said she’s spotting,” Castle relayed into the phone. “But this morning it was enough that I - it soaked through her pajamas.”</p><p>“This morning. Okay. We can work her in at 11:15. Can you make that?”</p><p>“Yes. Definitely.”</p><p>“If her stomach feels distended or she starts bleeding heavily, if she faints or has a fever, you must take her immediately to the emergency room. Do you understand?”</p><p>“Yes, ma’am,” he choked out.</p><p>“All right Mr. Riley. We’ll see you and your wife at 11:15. Kate Riley. 11:15.”</p><p>Castle let out a long breath and nodded even though the woman couldn’t see him. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”</p><p>He hung up and saw Colin had come through to the kitchen. His brother gave him a nod of his head to indicate he’d heard the last of it.</p><p>“Kate,” Castle called. “11:15 means we need to get dressed and go. It’s a few hours away. You feel up to it?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she sighed. </p><p>He grimaced and shifted James in his arms again, sliding his phone into his back pocket. “And. Ah. You ought to nurse the boys. Just to drain your levels. If you can.”</p><p>Kate pushed herself upright on the couch, sitting hunched for a moment before she nodded. “Yes. I can do that. I don’t want to get you guys - any of us - caught here.” She laid her hand on top of Wyatt’s head as the boy ran a car over her knee.</p><p>“We have good covers,” Colin said into the quiet. “We won’t be made. You don’t have to worry about that.”</p><p>Kate turned her head and looked at him, but she nodded. “Thanks.” </p><p>Castle quit stalling, moved to the couch to sit beside her, letting James down on his feet. “I can take you into the bedroom if you’d rather have some privacy.”</p><p>“Here is fine, it’s fine,” she murmured to him. “Have the boys had breakfast?”</p><p>“No, nothing, honey.” He caught the side of her face with his fingers and stroked softly. “Okay, I can shower and be ready in five minutes.”</p><p>“I need to shower too,” she mumbled, chewing on her lower lip. “And maybe I should do that first. Clean up. It’ll...” She glanced back once to Colin and then ducked her head against Castle’s shoulder. “It’ll help. Make my milk letdown.”</p><p>He skimmed his hand down her cheek and nodded. “Yes. I - see. Okay.”</p><p>“I don’t want to freak out and hurt-”</p><p>“You won’t.”</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>“You won’t,” he insisted. “We’ll shower together. Fast, bare essentials, babe.”</p><p>“But I-”</p><p>“You were alone at the time, right? You won’t be now. See? Already better.” He stood up and brought her with him, catching her when she swayed. “Colin? Watch the kids for me?”</p><p>“Yeah. Will do.”</p><p>“Castle,” she whispered, her voice tight.</p><p>“I promise you won’t hurt me.”</p><p>She sighed, defeat in her posture, but in the next moment she was straightening up again. Only a little grimace on her face. She shifted out of his arms and moved for the bedroom.</p><p>Castle glanced at his brother. “Ten minutes max, Col. If we don’t-”</p><p>“I got your back.”</p><p>He nodded. He didn’t think she would, not at all. He was only afraid that she’d start bleeding again and he would need to rush her to the emergency room.</p><p>But that wasn’t in his control. Not much was in his control, really.</p><p>Shower, nurse, drive her into town. Those things he could do.</p><p>-----</p><p>“I don’t think I can do this,” she said tightly, knees drawn up to her chest. The car was quiet for a long time, the road spitting under them, rain on the windshield. It rained a lot here; maybe this time the boys wouldn’t be frightened of the thunder.</p><p>His hand came over her knee and she finally turned to look at him. Determination in every strong line of his face. Nothing could move him. Not even her. “Can we unpack that statement?”</p><p>A laugh startled out of her. She wasn’t sure why. “Is that therapy talk?”</p><p>He nodded.</p><p>She turned her eyes back to the window. “I don’t know how to unpack.”</p><p>“What’s this? You can’t do what, exactly?”</p><p>“Walk into a doctor’s office, lie down on the table, and spread my legs.”</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>She shivered.</p><p>“I... can see that,” he muttered.</p><p>“Are you picturing it?” she murmured, not sure why it felt better to talk about sex, but it did. Much easier.</p><p>“Not in a good way,” he growled back. His voice was dark over the rain. “Would you rather?”</p><p>“Yes,” she breathed, relief. “I’d definitely rather. It’s too bad you’re not the doctor in the family, because I really enjoy you between my legs.”</p><p>His fingers gripped her knee and released. “Yes, well, that makes two of us. I really fucking wish I had gone to medical school.”</p><p>“Too bad. Life is pain. Let’s move on,” she muttered.</p><p>“Tell me what makes it better,” he said urgently. “Tell me what makes it okay for you, Kate. Not pain.”</p><p>“I don’t know. Not having to go. That would do it.”</p><p>“But you are in pain. You can’t sit up straight without flinching. So a doctor is going to come into play at some point here.”</p><p>“I don’t know, Castle. Just - leave me alone about it.”</p><p>He sighed at her and she leaned her forehead against the window, watched the drops slide down the glass. Up close and personal. The glass was cold; the car hit a weak spot in the pavement and jostled her, thumping her head against the window.</p><p>Ow.</p><p>“I’ll come in with you.”</p><p>She sat up a little straighter. “What?”</p><p>“I’ll come into the exam room with you,” he said calmly. “I’ll sit with you while - whatever she does.”</p><p>“She?” Kate whispered.</p><p>“Doc’s a woman. Shit, I didn’t even tell you that much, did I?” He pushed his head back against the headrest as if banging it against a wall. “I’m sorry, Kate. I just got - focused. Spy mode. Getting the job done. Dr Spivey. She’s had a practice in Allentown for the last twenty years. Established.”</p><p>Kate let out a breath and nodded, letting her fingers brace against the window, the drops diverging somehow around the mere suggestion of her presence. “Spivey. It’s better that it’s a woman.”</p><p>“Good,” he said quickly. “Good. Do you want me to come into the exam with you, Kate?”</p><p>She shifted in the chair, tried to figure out what people in the real world would do. If it had been her mother who needed a doctor’s appointment. “Most women don’t have their husbands in the exam room with them,” she muttered.</p><p>“So what? We don’t care about them. I care about you.”</p><p>“And what the doctor thinks, the nurses on staff, when you’re there. Answering questions for me and holding my hand and the - trauma - of my body. What... are we supposed to tell them, Castle? How do we explain that without it looking suspicious?”</p><p>“I don’t care-”</p><p>“I care. Those are my sons, my sons who have to live with this for rest of their lives, hiding what they are, what they can do. I-”</p><p>“Okay,” he husked. “I know. I care, but I-” </p><p>She felt her energy fading, draining right out of her as Castle stuttered to a stop. Neither of them had any words for it.</p><p>She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to lie down on a table that smelled like that facility and put her feet in stirrups that were as cold and metallic as the ones she’d had restraining her when the boys had been born. And probably other times, if she could remember. </p><p>She couldn’t bear to lie back and let someone insert that thing inside her and take a look.</p><p>Castle cleared his throat. “With a few words spoken judiciously, at the right time, we can set up a cover story that’s entirely plausible.”</p><p>“What?” she croaked.</p><p>“This is my job, Kate. This is what I do. For my life. I can get back into that exam room with you and make them all think exactly what I want them to think. Make them love me, and maybe pity you a little, but none of them will ever think more of it.”</p><p>“You can?” she said, turning her head slightly. Just enough to see him. All that determination and confidence.</p><p>“Of course. If you want me there.”</p><p>She let out a slow breath and curled tighter in the seat. “I want you there. I don’t want to have a panic attack in there, Castle. I might... do something.”</p><p>“I’ll be there. I won’t let you do it alone.”</p><p>-----</p><p>“You have to let me,” he murmured into her ear.</p><p>She stiffened, but he dragged a hand down her arm and tangled his fingers with hers, tugging her very gently towards the narrow window at the front desk.</p><p>The receptionist looked up at them. “Yes, sir, ma’am. Can I help you?”</p><p>“Riley,” he said with a faint smile. “I called for an emergency appointment-”</p><p>“Oh, yes, I was the one you talked to. Kate, right? How are you feeling, Kate?”</p><p>Castle squeezed her hand fiercely. She shifted and swallowed. “Okay. Tired. I’m-” As they had rehearsed in the parking lot, she buried her face in his shoulder.</p><p>Castle reached up and cupped her jaw. “It’s okay, Kate,” he murmured, and then to the woman with a grimace, “It hasn’t been easy. It’s been really bad, actually. We’re still in shock, I think.”</p><p>Kate lifted her head, just as they’d planned it. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay. I just...”</p><p>“And now this,” the woman said, clucking her tongue. “It’s never easy, I know. We have a few forms for you to fill out, if you want to take a seat. It’ll be just a moment, and then we’ll check on you, see what’s going on.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Kate said, taking the forms and a pen as they had already decided. Giving her some agency, but more importantly, showing the receptionist that she did this under her own power.</p><p>Castle, though, stayed at the window for a moment, watching Kate, studying her for the effect. </p><p>And the receptionist took the bait. “She’s vulnerable right now, that’s all. It will pass, I promise you. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”</p><p>He gave her a wan smile and nodded, and then he moved to the fake leather couch where Kate had sat with the paperwork. Kate glanced at him.</p><p>“On track,” he said softly. </p><p>She nodded and pressed her palms to the paperwork, smoothing it out. “I don’t exactly know what to say on all this.”</p><p>“As accurate as you can without giving out personal details. You have the social I gave you?”</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>“It will all be fine. The Riley cover is very good.”</p><p>“No one else knows about it?” she whispered, leaning against him. It was part of their act, or it was supposed to be, but he had the feeling she wasn’t exactly acting.</p><p>“No one but Colin. He’s the only one.”</p><p>Kate fingered the edge of the paper on her knee and glanced at him. There was something on her face as she pushed the top off the pen with her thumb. She chewed her lower lip, a thread of amusement in her eyes.</p><p>“So who was the original Mrs. Riley?” she murmured. “That you have a social for her.”</p><p>He felt himself blush.</p><p>She caught a laugh in her throat that he heard nonetheless, and he bumped his shoulder with hers. “Shut up. No one.”</p><p>“No one at all?”</p><p>“I... it was just in case. After Colin tried to save that girl.” His head bowed, his elbows on his knees. Kate leaned in and laid her cheek against his back, her arm threading through his, paperwork jostling.</p><p>“You wanted to help your brother,” she murmured.</p><p>He nodded, but that wasn’t entirely true. What he had wanted in that season of weakness, making a cover for a woman that existed only in his head, was for this right here.</p><p>He had wanted - he had craved - someone who inspired him to do reckless and stupid things to have her, just as his brother had done with the drug-dealing prostitute.</p><p>He had wanted, so desperately, to have a partner. Someone to care about, someone who cared about him. What happened to him. Cared if he showed up, cared if he made it home.</p><p>Castle laid his hand over hers at the crook of his elbow and turned to kiss the top of her head. “Fill out the paperwork, Mrs. Riley.”</p><p>“Yeah, baby, I will.”</p><p>He felt eyes on him and took a fast look, saw the receptionist watching them with sympathy.</p><p>They were on their way.</p><p>-----</p><p>When the nurse called her name to go back, Kate took two steps, managed to get to the threshold of the door, and then she turned. Her face colored, and at first the words wouldn’t come, but it had to be her.</p><p>Castle was doing a perfect imitation of anxious, but she had a feeling, the longer she stood immobile in the waiting room, that it wasn’t an act.</p><p>She stepped back and tried not to hunch her shoulders, tried to appear confident within herself. “Can-” She glanced to Castle, held her hand out for him, fingers wriggling. He stood but didn’t take her hand, as they’d planned it, and she sent a beseeching look to the nurse. “Can he come back with me?”</p><p>There was a shift of atmosphere that she could feel. She held her breath, hoping they’d laid the groundwork appropriately. A single woman who’d come into the waiting room only after Kate had turned in her paperwork gave them a raised eyebrow, but the receptionist was making eye contact with the nurse.</p><p>“Sure, Mrs Riley. He’s welcome to,” the nurse smiled, gesturing down the hall.</p><p>Castle’s hand came into hers and she felt her spine straighten, her gratefulness all out of proportion to way he laced his fingers in hers. They followed the nurse down the hall and into an open exam room. </p><p>“Just put on the gown. Underwear off. Dr Spivey will be in shortly.” A wink from the nurse and she was shutting the door after her as she left.</p><p>The moment they were alone, Castle embraced her. She didn’t realize she’d been shaking until his arms held her still. </p><p>“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he said quietly. “You can do this, Kate. Remember. If it’s bad enough, we’ll ask for a sedative. It won’t knock you out, it’ll just relax you.”</p><p>She nodded, but that didn’t make it much better. She shivered and buried her face against his neck, her arms caught up tight between them. She fisted his shirt in both hands, took gulping breaths.</p><p>“What do you need?” he said in her ear. “Tell me what I can do.”</p><p>“Tell me a story,” she choked out. “Distract me.” She pushed her forehead to his throat. “Distract me and undress me while you do.”</p><p>He grunted, his fingers rucking up the hem of her blouse. “Yesterday morning when I was outside with the boys, we saw your wolf cubs.”</p><p>She shivered and glanced up at him. “Yeah?” She had to blink as the shirt came up over her head, that fast.</p><p>“Yeah, just like you said. Came down to the creek to drink with their mama. Playing.” He teased his fingers at her waistband as he said it, and she caught her breath as his thumb popped open the button on her jeans. “Wyatt shrieked and startled all three of them, and then the mama nudged their little butts and got them moving back up the bank. Wyatt was so sad to see them go.”</p><p>She let out a breath, managed to take a step back. “Surprised he even noticed them.” </p><p>Castle palmed her ass as he pushed her jeans off her hips. “Well, I grabbed both the boys and made them sit with me in the shade to watch. So he had some help.” He kissed her knee as she stepped out of them. “But they both were interested. Attentive. They know the value of sitting still.”</p><p>She shivered, goose bumps running up her back and down her legs. Castle stood and framed her hips with his hands, a touching kiss of lips that she breathed into, resting, before he leaned out and snagged the hospital gown.</p><p>It was paper. It crinkled like the paper on the exam table. She was intimately familiar with both.</p><p>“Can I take these lace panties off you when you’ve gotten that on?” he murmured.</p><p>Distracting her. It worked. She wanted suddenly to get to that part of the story. She nodded and unfolded the paper, put her arms in slits, her head in the hole, fast with long practice.</p><p>Castle gripped her hips and hoisted her up onto the table, grinning at her as she let out a breathless grunt. He kissed her nose and patted her thighs. “Lift your hips for me, love.”</p><p>It was almost the same, but it wasn’t at all. No one at that facility had ever called her love. </p><p>No one had spent an hour on the drive into town, and then another twenty minutes parked in the car, just to come up with the perfect plan to gain her sympathy and positive attention. No one had ever asked if they could slide off her panties.</p><p>And no one - definitely, ever in her life - had made the act of disrobing so very erotic.</p><p>Kate lifted her hips for him and Castle dragged the material down her legs, making it as much a process as possible while she trembled with the strain.</p><p>The strain of lust. Of wanting him so damn badly when she was in a paper gown and pale from blood loss.</p><p>He stuffed her underwear in his pocket and laid his hands over the tops of her thighs, heavy and warm, and she angled a knee to let him shuffle even closer to the table.</p><p>This time, she kissed him. She kissed him first, the press of lips giving way to the stroke of tongues, slow and purposeful. It was easy, and everything, and when it was over, she laid her cheek on top of his shoulder and leaned into him, let him take her weight.</p><p>He rubbed the tops of her thighs with his thumbs. He murmured stupid jokes in her ear. The air conditioner cut on and brought goose bumps up on her arms.</p><p>And then the door opened with a soft sound and the doctor came into the room - and Kate didn’t even flinch. Castle turned his head to the new presence in her white lab coat, and the woman held out her hand.</p><p>“Kate Riley? I’m Dr Spivey. And this is your husband, Josh, I’m assuming. Nice to meet you.” </p><p>Kate sat up to take the woman’s hand, and Castle shook as well, the two of them still knee to knee, Castle providing her warmth. </p><p>The doctor sat down on her stool at the little table by the door. “Well, Kate. I can see this has worn you out-” a smile, a nod to the scene she’d come upon “-so how about you tell me what’s happened, I’ll take a look, and we can see what we need to do?”</p><p>Castle propped his hip against the table, his hand at Kate’s waist, but she battled hard to keep from looking to him for reference.</p><p>She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t make the doctor think Castle had anything to do with her craven anxiety.</p><p>“I had a D&amp;C a few weeks ago, but I went back to the hospital with bleeding,” she said. She felt Castle’s fingers at her thigh and hip, light, no worries. “And they told me it was a badly done - um - job. The doctor tried to fix things-” Kate gave a helpless shrug, shared a look with Castle.</p><p>She hadn’t meant to; she wasn’t supposed to. But his eyes were kind on hers. Gentle. She looked back to the doctor sitting on her little stool.</p><p>But Dr Spivey was only making shorthand notes, nodding. “And you’ve started bleeding again? I see on your medical form that you have a fourteen month old?”</p><p>She nodded. Castle had said it might be important for the doctor to know, that the specifics were important, but it still made her stomach flutter.</p><p>“Well, let’s see what’s going on, shall we? Lie down for me.”</p><p>Kate turned white. She knew she had, knew all the color had left her face, but she couldn’t help it.</p><p>Before Castle could say or do anything, Dr Spivey, pulling gloves out of a box on the table, gave Kate a tender smile. “It’ll be fast, Kate. I know there has to be some latent anxiety about it, after what you’ve been through, but I’ll take you through it, tell you exactly what I’m doing, and you can tell me to stop at any time.”</p><p>Kate let out a long breath and raised a shaky hand to her face. Castle was immobile at her side, but he was bowed nearly in half over her, as if to shield her.</p><p>“I’m okay,” she told him softly. Trying to speak under her breath. But she could tell the doctor had heard her. She pressed her hand to Castle’s chest to have him ease up. “I’m okay.”</p><p>She laid down on the plastic-papered table without his help, and she put her feet into the stirrups without the doctor even needing to ask. She was exposed now. She was - all exposed.</p><p>She was afraid the doctor would be able to divine all of her secrets.</p><p>“Mr Riley? There’s a stool right at that end if you want to sit?”</p><p>Castle’s eyes startled to one side, but he grabbed the stool and wheeled it to her side, took her hand in a death grip. She gripped him back, the rustle of the paper under her elbow where she was shaking.</p><p>He kissed her knuckles and she made herself look at him.</p><p>Oh, poor, sweet Castle. His heart was breaking for her.</p><p>“I’m okay,” she whispered again. </p><p>“All right, Kate. We’re going to start. The gel is warm, so hopefully it won’t be entirely uncomfortable.”</p><p>Yeah, that wasn’t going to be possible.</p><p>-----</p><p>“Thank you, Kate. You can get dressed now. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”</p><p>Before the door had shut on the doctor, Kate’s knee was already bouncing so hard that he had to wrap his fingers around her calf to still her.</p><p>The door did slam shut, and she let out a whining breath and practically fell over.</p><p>Castle rose from his little stool and clasped her shoulders, rubbed briskly to warm her up. Kate shivered and leaned hard into him, another whimper from her throat that she attempted to strangle as she straightened up.</p><p>“I’m okay,” she said, avoiding his eyes.</p><p>He let her go with that, tugged her panties out of his pocket. She huffed, but it broke the tension she’d been carrying since the car ride here. He slinked the lace across her bare knee and dropped back to the stool, brought her feet between his thighs. </p><p>“You want to help me out here?” she murmured. </p><p>“I’d really love to,” he hummed, grinning up at her. He leaned in and kissed the inside of the curve of her calf, adoring the long, gorgeous line of her leg. How beautifully she was formed. “You have sexy ankles.”</p><p>She tremored a laugh, glancing at him, and he wrapped his fingers around her ankle and angled her foot into one leg of her panties. She allowed him to manipulate her other foot, and then he slowly slid the lace up her legs to her knees.</p><p>She leaned back on her elbows and lifted her hips, and the paper crinkled, but she was only looking at him. Castle pushed up the paper gown and dug his thumbs into the inside of her thighs. He stood just enough to bury his nose in her groin, inhaling the scent of the gel, the faint tang of powdered gloves, and most overwhelmingly, Kate.</p><p>“Castle,” she husked.</p><p>He kissed the thatch of her pubic hair and nipped her inside thigh, and then he slid her panties into place. Goose bumps raced across her flesh and he grinned, and she knocked her knee into his cheek for it.</p><p>Castle laughed. She struggled to sit up, reaching her arms out for his help, and he took her hands, dragged her upright. She hooked her arms around his neck and so he gripped her hips and hoisted her off the paper-covered exam table. </p><p>Kate bounced on her toes, hugging him to her for a moment, and then she dropped flat to her feet. He hooked a finger in the collar of her paper gown, and he tugged sharply until it tore.</p><p>She gasped, glancing down, and he ripped the paper gown to her navel. Kate gave a shiver and caught the edges of the gown, and then she tore it herself, shedding the paper like a coat. When she stepped free of it, wearing nothing but purple lace underwear and a black bra, she flung her arms around his neck once more and crashed into his chest.</p><p>“You’re incorrigible, you know,” she murmured. </p><p>“Mm, I know.” He spread his palms over her bare back and slid his fingers under the band of her bra. “And you’re adorable, and courageous, and wearing my favorite outfit.”</p><p>“Oh?” She lifted her chin and looked up at him. “If I’d known you wanted to wear my purple panties, Castle, I’d have let you borrow them.”</p><p>He snorted, shaking his head at her, and then he released her from his embrace to pick up her jeans from the end of the exam table. “Here, let’s at least be dressed when she gets back to tell us the results.”</p><p>Kate shivered and snagged her jeans from his hands, nodded as she tried to hop into them quickly. He hoped her hadn’t said the wrong thing, after he’d worked so hard to lighten her mood. She got dressed in record time, jeans and shirt pulled over her head, but she tugged a rubber band out of her pocket and scraped her hair back, tying it off in a messy bun.</p><p>She looked like teenager. She looked like a twenty-one year old girl who had seen dark times. Castle sank to the stool and tried not to let it show, just how she gutted him out sometimes.</p><p>When Kate remained standing, choosing not to crawl back onto the exam table, Castle stood up and gave her the stool. He had to push on her shoulders to get her to take it, and then he leaned back against the table himself, trying to diminish its looming presence in the room.</p><p>Kate wheeled the stool close to his outstretched legs and leaned the side of her face against his hip. He touched the top of her head with two fingers, trying not to disarrange her hair.</p><p>When the door opened, Kate stood up, he straightened up in response, and they tangled together before the exam table.</p><p>Dr Spivey was holding Kate’s chart in her hand, frowning. “We’re sending the bloodwork out to the lab, so you’ll need to call back in a week to get your results but-” Spivey frowned deeper, finally looked up to Kate. “From what I can tell, you’re about five weeks healed. The stitches the emergency department put in have fallen out because - because whatever was wrong, whatever patch job they were doing, I can’t find any trace of it.”</p><p>Castle tripped on the stool, sent it skittering back to bump against the wall. “What do you mean - wait - what are you saying?”</p><p>“I’m recommending pelvic rest for twenty-four hours, because of your bleeding, but my guess is that was the stitches coming loose.”</p><p>“Coming loose?” she echoed. Castle’s heart was pounding; he couldn’t imagine how she was still standing up under this.</p><p>“Coming loose,” Dr Spivey nodded. “Because they were completely unnecessary any longer. I’m not sure what’s happened, to be perfectly honest. What I saw was a healthy womb, Kate. A few places where it was evident that you’d had trauma - but that could be from giving birth. The stitches you said you got - those are gone. Probably flushed.”</p><p>“How is that...” Castle trailed off, knowing exactly how it was possible. </p><p>The elixir. Holy fuck. It had healed her?</p><p>“Did you say... did you say pelvic rest for twenty-four hours more and then... what?”</p><p>Dr Spivey smiled. “Yes, and then sexual intercourse. I’d say keep it nice and missionary for a while, but I’m giving you the green light.”</p><p>Castle’s spine snapped straight. He caught Kate’s elbow, tried not to crush her bones with his grip.</p><p>“That’s... oh,” Kate whispered. Her cheeks suffused bright pink, that glow of lust and arousal he knew so very damn well. She slid her eyes to him and her lips spread into a grin that could have brought him to his knees.</p><p>“Kate,” he muttered.</p><p>Dr Spivey gave a restrained smile and handed Kate her chart. “Take this back out to the front window, and they’ll get you squared away with the bloodwork. Congratulations, Mrs Riley. You’ve healed very nicely.”</p><p>She was healed. Whatever the blood had been, it was like her womb had needed to shed some layer to reveal the pink and fresh and whole inner being. </p><p>Kate clamped her fingers around his wrist and pulled him out of the exam room.</p><p>Oh, hell. How was he supposed to do missionary with this woman when his whole body clamored for something so much more?</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate leaned in against the side counter of the receptionist’s desk, not yet free of this place.</p><p>Almost. So close. </p><p>Castle had given her the ID packet, everything she might need for this visit, including the health insurance card and the credit card assigned to Mrs. Josh Riley. All she had to do was sign her name. If they got that far. </p><p>The receptionist was running the card when the nurse took Kate’s chart from the counter. The woman read the notes and then turned and grabbed a packet from a drawer, stepped up to the pay counter.</p><p>“Here’s the care packet we usually give out. You won’t need most of this,” the nurse said, smiling briefly. She peeled open the envelope and pulled out a sheaf of glossy pages, started weeding them out. “Okay, Dr Spivey says week six is about where you’re at here. This is the care manual, all written out for you, but let me point out a few things.”</p><p>Castle let out a breath of relief at her shoulder, and she glanced at him, wondered if he’d been worried about it. Dr Spivey had said she was healed. She didn’t care about the stupid week six manual; she wanted to get out of here.</p><p>“First of all, I know you had some restrictions-”</p><p>“Can she pick up our son?” Castle blurted out. “She couldn’t - there was something about nothing over five pounds but-”</p><p>“That’s usually the first three weeks. Just to be cautious, Dr Spivey has prescribed twenty-four more hours of rest. But this time tomorrow, she’s cleared for normal routines, picking up your son, working out, sexual intercourse. All of that will be perfectly fine.” </p><p>“Just that fast,” Castle croaked.</p><p>Kate elbowed his side and glared at him. What was with all the questions? </p><p>“Kate, if you do have pain, please call us back. Dr Spivey wants to keep up with you, okay?”</p><p>Never. She wouldn’t do it. “Of course.”</p><p>The receptionist came back with the credit card, and receipts, and Kate automatically took up a pen. She wasn’t thinking really; she was just going through the motions, and she almost signed Kate Castle.</p><p>At the top of the C, she jerked the pen back down and finished with Riley, her heart thundering strangely.</p><p>Why Castle? Why hadn’t she nearly written Beckett?</p><p>“Here you go, Mr Riley,” the nurse was saying, handing him the care packet. “Education is all in there, if you’re worried.”</p><p>If the nurse could see how worried he was, then he must really be unsettled by the whole thing. She pushed the credit card into her back pocket and took his hand, tugging slightly to get his attention.</p><p>Castle glanced at her, seemed to read her need to get the fuck out of here, because he nodded shortly and took the paperwork and receipts. “Thank you so much for fitting us in.”</p><p>“We’re glad to help. You have a nice day.”</p><p>Kate stepped towards the exit door, pushing it open before they could call her back, before anyone could see just how much she didn’t belong here. The door bypassed the waiting room entirely, sending her out into a back hall, and Kate released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.</p><p>“Slow down, Kate.”</p><p>She turned quickly and caught his look, the furrowed brow, the way he cradled the packet in his hands, already rifling through the pages. “Rick. Come on, just - let’s get out of here.”</p><p>His head came up, a piercing look that went straight through her. She reached back and threaded her arm through his elbow, pulling him along with her, avoiding the blue of his eyes, how he saw too much.</p><p>Castle cleared his throat and slid the pages back into the packet as they walked. “Well. I certainly wasn’t expecting that. But I should have been.”</p><p>She punched the button for the elevator, not releasing his arm. “The elixir.”</p><p>He nodded, a growl in his throat. “One good thing.”</p><p>“How - um - how long do you think that kind of thing lasts? I mean, the healing stuff?”</p><p>“I have no idea, Kate. In you, with a normal DNA base, I just have no way of forecasting.”</p><p>She shivered and leaned her cheek to the top of his shoulder. “But I healed in one week what should have taken six.”</p><p>“Or more,” he said roughly. The doors opened and Castle faintly nudged her forward; she stepped on and turned to him. He shook his head. “A week and half not only healed whatever damage was done, but the trauma of - I mean, all of those...”</p><p>Oh. The pregnancies. No wonder he looked like that. No wonder- </p><p>“I’m guessing... ah, shit.” Castle growled and scrubbed a hand down his face. “He probably gave you a dose of the elixir this last time, after... after the D&amp;C they did. They wouldn’t have to do that great a job of it, they could just extract the - fuck. Kate. I just-”</p><p>“It’s okay. You can say it,” she muttered. The elevator doors opened and they stepped out as one, heading for the lobby. “It happened; it’s done. He didn’t have to be very careful, like you said, because all he needed to do was pump me full of the elixir and let it do its job.”</p><p>Castle steered her towards the side hall that led to the parking lot at the back. She could see the rain pouring even from here, the grey day outside the windows. Castle paused with her at the door and shook his head.</p><p>“Stay here and I’ll pull the car-”</p><p>“No,” she got out, breath coming fast.</p><p>He glanced at her, but he kept his mouth shut. She figured he could see it on her face, all the ache, and he didn’t fight her on it. Instead, he lifted his t-shirt and tucked the packet into the front of his jeans, pulled his shirt down to protect it. Then he opened the glass door and pulled her out into the rain.</p><p>“Run for it?” she grinned, already soaked to the skin. She dashed forward before he could answer, taking him with her by the hand, dragging him when he faltered. She knew exactly where the Jeep was and she found it unerringly, her skin cooled by the rain, her hair in a knotted mess at her neck.</p><p>Castle had already remote unlocked it and she let go of his hand at the hood, went around to the passenger side so she could throw open the door. She was laughing and breathless when she jumped inside, and though there were still twinges in her guts, it wasn’t at all anything bad.</p><p>Just getting used to her new womb. Something like that.</p><p>Castle slammed his door shut after her and scrubbed his hand down his face, glanced at her. She grinned back at him, reached out and combed her fingers in his wet hair, pushing it out of his eyes.</p><p>He wasn’t breathless at all. She could barely catch hers. He looked delicious, despite the worry, the grief, all of it.</p><p>“Um, so I was thinking,” she said quickly, shifting to one hip in the seat. “I just survived having a doctor down there-” she gestured crudely “-and I didn’t freak out at all, so I think I get a reward.”</p><p>Castle was just staring at her.</p><p>She bit her bottom lip and dragged her fingers down his wet arm, collecting raindrops until she got to his wrist. His hand laid on the console but he turned his palm up to her. She leaned in and kissed the thick heart of his thumb, felt his fingers curl at her chin and cheeks.</p><p>“Reward,” he husked. “Like what?”</p><p>“I’ll let you know,” she murmured, lifting her head to look at him. </p><p>“Kate,” he sighed. As if he had more to say, but didn’t know how to bring it up.</p><p>“Drive, Castle. I’ll let you know.”</p><p>He stared at her for a moment more and then he turned and jabbed the key in the ignition, not saying another word.</p><p>-----</p><p>“There, Castle. That’s what I want. My reward. Pull over.”</p><p>He glanced quickly to where she was pointing, the rain beating heavily on the roof, and gave a little sigh of relief.</p><p>“Ice cream. Yeah.” He guided the Jeep to the turn lane and pulled into the shopping center, angling the car into a parking space close. “Ice cream in the rain.”</p><p>She was grinning, already fumbling for the handle, pushing out into the thunderstorm before he even turned off the car. He followed her, jumping out and slamming the door shut behind him, remote locking it as he hurried for the entrance.</p><p>Kate was a dripping wet thing on the sidewalk under the overhang, and he leaned in and kissed her cheek for it, licking the raindrops from her skin. She shivered and clung to the material of his shirt, and he could swear he tasted salt in the drops.</p><p>Like tears.</p><p>She pushed him away and instead went for the front door of the ice cream parlor, moving inside as a rush of air-conditioning billowed out. Castle went after her, both of them wiping off rain, hair still soaked from their earlier dash to the car. He stood in line behind her, a hand at the small of her back, his finger in the belt loop of her jeans.</p><p>He just had to hold on to her. He just needed to hang on. </p><p>The elixir was, at its essence, a mystery, and while Kate was bright-eyed and eager now, this morning she had been doubled up in pain. He didn’t know what the elixir did to her body, to her systems, and the idea that it could all fall apart in the next moment was just too oppressive.</p><p>And Castle had no way of easily getting more of the elixir, if it came to that. He wouldn’t need it, in all likelihood, but Kate might. His own brother might, truth be told. And if it made Kate feel more at ease to know that the elixir was available should the worst happen, then the very next thing on his to-do list was running down a fucking lifetime supply of that stuff.</p><p>“What can I get you?” </p><p>Castle startled back to the here and now, his eyes tracking finally to the harried looking teenager behind the counter. Kate touched her fingers to the glass and leaned in, that same eagerness he’d seen at the doctor’s office as they’d been a step away from leaving.</p><p>Almost ecstasy. </p><p>Kate tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and gave the teen a dazzling smile. The kid actually took a step back.</p><p>No shit, kid.</p><p>“I’d like two scoops - one of chocolate espresso and the other strawberry.” She glanced back at Castle with all of that delicious anticipation on her face.</p><p>He felt struck down to his bones. (No, his cock, be honest. It was his cock that felt fucking electrocuted that look.) “Yeah, I’ll, have the same.”</p><p>She scowled at him and turned around to the teenaged boy. “Cancel that. Make the second one fudge brownie and pink bubblegum.”</p><p>“Pink bubblegum?” he mouthed. She just dragged him down the glass-domed counter to the register, pulling that credit card out of her back pocket. He caught her hand and shook his head, took his wallet out - with cash.</p><p>“Oh,” she murmured, sliding the card back into her pocket. “Sorry.”</p><p>“It’s fine,” he said quietly, handing cash over to the girl behind the register. The teenaged boy came up with one cup of ice cream made, and Kate took it, wrapping napkins around the cardboard.</p><p>They waited to one side for the second cup, Castle watching her lick the top scoop from her cup with her tongue rather than using the bright pink spoon. He was entranced. The swirl of her tongue, the way the light brown of espresso dipped to the tip of her nose. She wiped it off and curled her nose at him, and he laughed.</p><p>He’d find that damn elixir. His father’s network had been extensive, more than one facility doing research, and there had to be a processing lab somewhere. A place that made the damn stuff.</p><p>“Here you go, sir,” the teenager called. Castle reached out and took the second cup of ice cream, frowning into the hot pink scoop.</p><p>Kate dunked her spoon into his cup and pulled up a big bite, stuck it in her mouth.</p><p>“Oh, I get it now. You couldn’t decide.”</p><p>She grinned around the spoon, charming, cute, adorable, all of it. “Yup. Couldn’t decide. At least you keep me from looking like a pig.”</p><p>He reached in and thumbed her nose, pushing it back as he mouthed oink oink. </p><p>Kate laughed and knocked his hand away, dodging him. “Come on, let’s go.”</p><p>Castle took her hand, rubbing her knuckles. “Let’s go? We not eating here?”</p><p>“It’s freezing in here. Let’s eat in the car on the way back.” She glanced out the door at the rain. “If you don’t mind.”</p><p>“I don’t mind. But protect your ice cream, love. The rain might wash it away.”</p><p>The trainers first. Even if they weren’t deeply involved in the project, they’d know about others who might have been inside that facility. The more they knew, the more likely they’d find elixir.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate licked espresso ice cream from her spoon and closed her eyes on a hum. The vibration of the engine through the Jeep rumbled in her bones, not unlike the way Castle felt under her ear, the burr of his voice in his chest, the-</p><p>“You gonna share that?”</p><p>She glanced up, caught out, couldn’t figure out what he wanted her to share. What she was thinking? Or-</p><p>“I’m not eating that pink bubblegum,” he warned her. His hair was still wet, floppy over his eyes. She really liked the velvet of the short cut at the back of his neck and the longer lick of hair at his forehead. Made him look brooding, hiding his deeply-set eyes.</p><p>And then when he smiled-</p><p>“You hear me, Beckett? I am not eating pink bubblegum, so you better be leaving me some of that.”</p><p>She grinned, shrugged at him. “You’re gonna have to come over here and get it.”</p><p>He huffed, tightening his hands on the wheel. Ten and two like they’d taught her in driver’s training. What a good boy scout he was. </p><p>“You could pull off,” she murmured.</p><p>He shot her a look and she hid her smile behind the bright pink of the spoon. </p><p>“Kate. Don’t you dare finish that espresso. I like coffee.”</p><p>“Mm, me too. First semester at Stanford - only semester-” She rolled her eyes and dug into the espresso again. She’d eaten most of the strawberry, a few bites of brownie, a lick or two of pink bubblegum, but this was amazing. “A group of us bought a huge coffee maker, had it in the common room of the freshman dorm. We were total nerds. We would record this show, all get together for a watch party, downing coffee and popcorn and chocolate.”</p><p>“Yeah? In a semester.”</p><p>She grinned. “Yeah, college. You just get in a group, you know? And everything you kinda hid about yourself in high school, the stuff you covered up so no one ever guessed, you find out that there are these awesome people in college who are that same way. They’re exactly like you.”</p><p>“You had stuff you covered up? Like what.”</p><p>She shrugged at him and licked another cool stripe of espresso. “Like - I don’t know. I had these crazy unhealthy obsessions with Nebula 9 and Temptation Lane. TV shows. My mom loved the soap, but the sci-fi thing... I don’t know how that happened.”</p><p>“Sci-fi. That was the Nebula 9 show?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she murmured, licking her bottom lip. “We - um - we dressed up as our favorite characters and road tripped down to Comic Con. It was amazing. We were all so stupid together, but we were together. That was the thing. That was - so cool.”</p><p>“So cool,” he echoed. He sounded confused.</p><p>“People like me. We were all geeky and awkward and confused together, figuring it out together. Not perfect, not even cool, just... special. Something different. Like - you and me.”</p><p>Castle shot her a fast look, something in it she couldn’t understand, and then the Jeep swerved and she gasped, gripping the door to hang on. Rocks pinged the undercarriage until Castle braked hard, the Jeep fishtailing a little on the side of the road.</p><p>The rain thundered over their heads. Kate stared at him, fingers numb with the ice cream cup, and then Castle reached for her.</p><p>-----</p><p>He dragged her by the wrist over the center console and caught her ice cream, shoved his face in it to lick the last of the espresso. Kate gave a gasping little breath and maybe something like a giggle, and her free hand fisted in his hair, trying to bring his head up.</p><p>“Fuck, this is good,” he growled. And then at the pout on her face, he smashed his lips to hers and swirled espresso ice cream, melted and warm, into her mouth.</p><p>Kate groaned. Guttural, deep. Her fist in his hair tightened and angled him against her. Castle pried the ice cream from her fingers and shoved it into the cupholder, fingers accidentally flipping the pink spoon to the floor.</p><p>Kate inhaled his mouth. Devoured him. Tongue and movement, the endless rock of her body. He growled her name in his chest, couldn’t even make sounds that came close, she was so tight against him.</p><p>She was so tight. She was rocking her hips on either side of his thighs, on her knees in his seat. He tugged at the denim, found his way into her back pockets, kneading.</p><p>“Castle,” she moaned. “Castle, Castle-”</p><p>He found her mouth again and sucked on her tongue, silencing her, not sure he could survive her calling his name like that. She was breathless and open, she was hot breath and busy fingers. She wasn’t clever with it, but fuck if that didn’t make it all the more amazing.</p><p>“Kate,” he whispered, touched more lightly against her mouth, wanting to slow it down somehow. Wanting slow. “Kate.”</p><p>“You can’t stop me now,” she said. Unbuttoning his pants, sliding his zipper down.</p><p>His heart thundered. “She said twenty-four hours to-”</p><p>“She’s just covering her ass. Like doctors do. Something good for their medical malpractice insurance. You know I’m fine. You and I both know she can’t explain it because of the elixir.”</p><p>Castle swallowed roughly, trying to keep his hips still. She was fierce and she was damaged in places he wasn’t sure he could always reach, so the fact that she was here in his lap and blooming for him, wide open, he couldn’t say no.</p><p>He wouldn’t say no.</p><p>“The front seat of my car isn’t how I envisioned this,” he told her softly. His lips graced her cheek and came down to her jaw. “I wanted to lay you out on the bed and undress you.”</p><p>She whimpered and bowed over him, her hand clutching at the back of his neck.</p><p>“Peel your shirt over your head and lick your skin, this place below the wire of your bra,” he murmured, skimming his thumb over her ribs to that crease. He bumped aside the cup of her bra and rubbed hard at her nipple.</p><p>“Castle,” she whined.</p><p>“I want to see all of you, settle down between your legs for a good long while.”</p><p>“Oh, God,” she whispered. She was distracted; her hand splayed low at his abs and she ground her sex against the hardness of his cock. His erection straining for her.</p><p>“But for now, sweetheart, let’s try this.” He popped the button of her jeans only to hear her whine for it, for him. It was fuel on a fire, and he hooked his fingers in the lace of her purple underwear. “You want to try this with me?”</p><p>“Oh, God, yes,” she moaned. Her forehead fell against his, crashing into him, and he grinned and nipped at her lips, taking another kiss.</p><p>She was shivering when he scratched lightly at the kinky hair of her groin, and the hot breath of her plea echoed in his own mouth. He had to tug at her jeans, widening her up to him in the tight confines of the material, but they were stretchy enough to get his hand between her legs.</p><p>Kate jerked into him, head dropping back on a vicious arch of her back. “Oh, please.”</p><p>“No need to beg, sweetheart.” He kissed the corner of her mouth where she was open and dizzy, beautiful in the spattering, diffuse light from the thunderstorm. “I’m giving you exactly what you need.”</p><p>“Oh, God, Castle, Cas-”</p><p>He twisted his wrist and sank his fingers between her legs. She moaned and rose up, as if trying to get away from his touch. He gripped her hip and dug his thumb against the place where he guessed her clit-</p><p>“Fuck!”</p><p>She tensed, already at the brittle edge of an orgasm. Castle backed off, knowing exactly how to drag her out along the highest plateau, working his fingers slowly into her sex. Slowly. </p><p>Going so damn slowly.</p><p>Her breasts heaved, appealing in the tight t-shirt, the slip of black silk where her bra strap rose above her clavicle. He leaned forward and opened his mouth over her breast, sank his teeth into her shirt, the cup of her bra.</p><p>“Oh, God.”</p><p>His finger pushed inside her, deeper than before, hitting the base of his knuckle. She writhed over his hand, riding him, her body in a frenzy. He got his teeth deeper into her breast, found the roll of her nipple. She squeaked and lifted off his hand, but he used it to stroke her sex, starting up a slow rhythm.</p><p>Sounds stuttered out of her. Erotic and needy. He raised his head from her breast; he didn’t want to miss this. The ecstasy on her face, the wonder.</p><p>Oh, God, the wonder.</p><p>She was so hot between her legs, hot and wet, and her arousal creamed his palm and ran down around his wrist, she was so fucking wet. “God, you’re beautiful.”</p><p>Her head dropped down to look at him, her eyes drugged and deep as black holes. Drawing him inevitably into her gravity. Desperate, so desperate, and her hips rocked furiously against his fingers.</p><p>He wouldn’t give her a second one. Not yet, not when he couldn’t be sure. One finger inside her, fucking her off truly, in the most literal way, his thumb rubbing tight circles at her clit. She mewled and opened her mouth as if she was going to beg him.</p><p>“Kate,” he urged. “Come on, baby. You can feel it coming, you know it’s right there. It’s right there waiting for you, love. It’s-”</p><p>“Oh, God, yes,” she gasped. Her eyes slammed shut, her body in a terrible taut bow against his chest, rubbing herself against him as she finally exploded into orgasm.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kate found herself limp, slick and hot, melted against his body. His arm was a tight band around her lower back, but his hand was still between her legs. She could barely move, but even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t draw her knees together like this.</p><p>His finger curled inside her.</p><p>Kate groaned and shifted her hips against his hand. </p><p>“Good? Too much?” he whispered.</p><p>“Good,” she mumbled, pressing her arms into his chest. Her fingers were warm. She played with the skin at his neck, the damp place at the hollow of his throat. Her eyelids were heavy, and she let them close, the curious heat liquid inside her.</p><p>Castle’s mouth touched her cheek and she hummed. His body was somehow both hard and easy, an exact fit for the places where she curved and curled in. </p><p>“Try this,” he murmured at her mouth. His thumb slid slowly along the outside lips of her sex, dragging through her wetness. She shivered and he flicked lightly at something that made her gasp. “Too much?”</p><p>“No,” she gulped, breathless again. “Not at all. Good, good.”</p><p>“And this?” His finger inside her slowly withdrew, making her whine in protest, but the thick place at his knuckle, the base of his finger, crushed her clit.</p><p>Kate yelped, shuddering through something that vibrated her whole body.</p><p>“Aftershocks,” he murmured at her jaw. His tongue touched her skin and his mouth suckled lightly. “Good?”</p><p>“So good,” she breathed, rubbing her palm over his chest. Her body was drugged, but alive, awake in all these places. Connected right back to the place between her legs where he touched her.</p><p>His finger curled and hooked just inside her pelvic bone, making her grunt, making her thrust her hips against his hand, his chest. He nipped her ear. “That good?”</p><p>“You’re so good,” she whined, dropping her head to his shoulder. She felt his answering growl, the way his arm banded around her torso, and the amazing tease of his hand between her legs. “So good, so good, don’t stop.”</p><p>“Again?” he murmured. “So soon after the first-”</p><p>“What are you - talking about?” she gasped, riding his hand, driving herself down on that one, exploring finger and the wide cup of his fist. “More, give me more. I want...”</p><p>“What, baby? Tell me.”</p><p>She whined, grinding down against that thick knuckle. “I don’t know,” she mewled. “Help me, I don’t-”</p><p>“Okay, okay,” he hushed her. “I got you, love. You know I got you.” His mouth sealed over hers, swallowing her need. His finger stroked in and out of her, a continuous glide, but it wasn’t enough, wasn’t nearly enough.</p><p>“I need-” she cut off with groan, bowing over him, working her hips. More, harder, the thickness of his whole hand inside her-</p><p>“No fucking way,” he growled. “I’m not putting my whole damn hand inside you right now. Not yet. That will come, but not in the car, not when I don’t even get to see your face.”</p><p>That will come? She could do that? She could-</p><p>She had pushed two babies out of there, right? Both of them premature but with Rick Castle’s big head. She could get his whole hand inside her. Soon. She wanted that. She wanted all of that, she wanted everything she’d never had, all the ways his body made her feel.</p><p>“Fuck,” he whispered at her temple. “You’re amazing. You’re so damn hot.”</p><p>She shivered and tightened her knees at his hips, nudging her sex into his hand to get him moving. He suddenly slicked his thumb over that tight, hot part - that wonderful jolt of electricity that seared up her spine and exploded in her head. She moaned and thrust into him, riding the incessant pressure of his thumb and finger.</p><p>“Please,” she husked. “Please, harder.”</p><p>“Hush, baby, I’ve got you. Just trust me.”</p><p>She whined, grinding down into him, but his arm tightened around her and came up. He gripped the back of her neck, so tightly that her head fell back, her throat exposed to the bite of his teeth. “Castle.”</p><p>His thumb crushed her clit and his fingers curled, and before she could fathom what happened next, he had two fingers sliding inside her.</p><p>“Oh, God, oh God.”</p><p>“Told you,” he hummed. “Don’t tighten up, baby. Just ride it out.”</p><p>She was shuddering; she could barely do anything but cling to his neck and feel the wide-open pressure of his fingers inside her. She whimpered, her whole body a taut string of anticipation, craving it, that feeling, that shocking burst of-</p><p>“Come for me, Kate.”</p><p>She shattered at his command, crying out into the lightning-soaked ozone of the car, arching so far backward that she slammed into the steering wheel.</p><p>The horn sounded, a brief and urgent alarm, and Kate jerked upright, crouching over his fingers inside her, flattened against his chest. Her heart was pounding furiously. Her body slick with sweat and still zipping with those currents, those bright flames all inside her.</p><p>“I got you. You’re okay, just a little noise. Celebrating two orgasms back to back, baby.”</p><p>She groaned and hid her face against his neck, mortified by how quickly that had turned, ecstasy to craven fear. His arm came around her, pulling her hard into his chest. She felt his fingers work inside her, a slow stretching that made her breath pull more deeply, made her head come up.</p><p>He withdrew his fingers and she mewled, rubbing her lips against his cheek. The bristle at his jaw was tantalizing, electric. She was raw everywhere, everything was weeping.</p><p>His arm curved up between them and his wet fingers touched her mouth. She moaned, and he slid his fingers inside. His stroke along her tongue, the pressure of two fingers, mimicked the dirty things he’d done to her sex. </p><p>It never stopped. She wanted him again, wanted all of that feeling pushing inside her, wanted to take him, whatever he would give her, whatever she could possibly, at all, be worth.</p><p>“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, sliding his fingers from her mouth. Wet trails down her throat. His eyes so heavy, aroused, the blue more silver than sky. “You’re everything to me, Kate.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle stroked her back with light touches, breathing deeply of the humid scent of rain and sex. Her body laid against his like a cat, strong, sleek, entirely too independent so that it was clear this was rare, a treat.</p><p>While before, Kate’s body against his had felt like some kind of wild animal found wounded and too exhausted now to keep fighting, now her limp and liquid heat was content.</p><p>She wanted to be here. She wanted to be here with him.</p><p>Her head tucked up under the curve of his throat and jaw, her hair so soft. So soft. He rubbed his palms slowly up her spine and cupped the back of her head, fingers in the deep pile of her hair. Thick ropes of it, heavy, but each individual strand was so light and thin, soft like James’s hair.</p><p>He kissed her temple, let his lips linger. “You smell like the rain,” he murmured, sighing into her hair. He loved her hair, remembered the way it felt dragging against his thighs and tickling his cock.</p><p>“All smells like the rain,” she mumbled into his neck. Her hand dragged down his chest and tucked into his waistband, as if she was trying to keep her fingers warm. Wriggling in closer. Wyatt did that too. His heart was going to burst; he wanted to touch her everywhere, find all the places that made her shiver, made her feel good. He wanted her skin and her lips and the brush of her hair, he wanted this.</p><p>He wanted this for always. </p><p>“Storm’s loud,” she said, almost a whine. Her head turned and her cheek came to his shoulder, letting her look out the window. Her free hand touched the glass on the driver’s side, tracing raindrops.</p><p>He finally focused on the world outside the car, watched the trees being tossed by the wind, the way the rain shifted directions with the storm. The woods were close to the shoulder, so that branches bowed to the roof and drenched leaves slapped the windshield. He saw a beaten flower, some kind of morning glory still on its trailing vine, tangled in the branches overhanging their car.</p><p>“Kinda beautiful,” he sighed. “Isn’t it? Like someone I know. All that strength.”</p><p>She let out a soft breath and suddenly her lips touched the skin at his neck, traveled up to his jaw, grazed his chin to settle at his mouth. Her kiss was light, the slightest pressure. Erotic, to feel the softness of her lips in juxtaposition to hard angles of her body, the lines and edges and steel of her.</p><p>Kate slowly backed off, her hands flat to his chest as she held herself away from him. He let her out of his clutch, tried to be content with still having her on his lap, tried to simply rest his hands on her thighs. No demands.</p><p>For a moment, he thought she was going to say something. He actually thought she’d open her mouth and communicate - what she was thinking, how she felt, why she’d kissed him like gratitude.</p><p>But she didn’t. She only studied him, the jut of her chin growing more and more stubborn, and then she twisted her torso and clawed at the door handle.</p><p>The driver’s door was ripped open by the force of the storm, and Kate was off his lap and jumping down to the gravel before he could catch her.</p><p>Her arms lifted, head tilting back, and for a second, he just stared at her, the rain whipping inside the cab of the Jeep. She was soaked to the skin in moments, but they’d been wet since the doctor’s office. Not like it mattered. With her face lifted to the rain, she was gorgeous.</p><p>And lonely.</p><p>Castle yanked the keys from the ignition and hopped down to the gravel shoulder as well, slamming the door shut behind him. She startled and turned, lashes dazzled with rain, heavy-lidded, her arms dropping to her sides. She breathed hard, like she’d been running, and that defensive posture crept back into her frame.</p><p>He reached out and grabbed her by the nape, tugged her hard into his body. She stumbled on the gravel and kicked a pea stone against his combat boot, but she came into him. Wet and bedraggled, her hair in snaky tendrils around his arm.</p><p>“Kate?” he said. He was tired of silence. He wanted a little reassurance from her that she was still here with him. Not back there at the doctor’s office, not doing herself damage, not wishing he’d leave her on the side of the road.</p><p>“Just wanted to feel it,” she scraped out. Her voice sent shudders down his spine, rich and textured. “Want to feel everything.”</p><p>He tightened his arm at her shoulders and buried her against him. “Stick with me, Beckett,” he promised. “I can make that happen.”</p><p>She chuckled. “You most definitely can. Just with your fingers. Wonder what the rest of you can do.”</p><p>Oh, hell. Just her laughter alone, hearing the bright-dark mirth in her voice as she was tucked against him, was enough to make his guts clench. But the words on top of it. The words she spoke to him-</p><p>“Take me home, Rick Castle. I wanna see my boys, pick them up. And then put them down for a nap.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle had to concentrate on the road. The storm was vaguely more impressive now that he didn’t have his fingers in her panties, now that the true power of it was battling against him. The Jeep wasn’t the most ideal vehicle for high winds, but he’d been thinking about taking her to the lake shore, those rugged trails off-road. Not main highways with sheer winds.</p><p>Was it fucking tornado season?</p><p>Kate, though, was entirely relaxed in the seat beside him. As if the storm had no place in her worldview, and therefore barely registered. He’d seen her do that at other times, focusing so narrowly on one thing that other issues were eclipsed.</p><p>Kate hummed something interrogative and propped her arm on the back of his seat. Her fingers began stroking the nape of his neck that felt entirely possessive. </p><p>“I forgot about the boys,” she murmured.</p><p>“What?” he said, giving her a sideways look. Her thumb nudged at the bone below his ear, rubbed his earlobe. </p><p>She smiled, turned her head back to the windshield. “They were upset by the storm.”</p><p>“You think they are now?” He felt like closing his eyes and purring, but the rain wasn’t about to let up. He kept his hands nimble on the steering wheel.</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>“You feel them?”</p><p>“Oh,” she said, as if surprised. A little shrug of her shoulders that he could see. “Nope. I don’t. I mean, I guess, there somewhere. How do you know the difference between truly sensing their little souls and just loving them?”</p><p>His throat closed up. He shook his head, unable to speak.</p><p>“You know?” she sighed softly. “The way I felt when I saw them the first time, I didn’t feel like that when I knew I was pregnant.”</p><p>He cleared his throat, nodding, trying to bring words up. “Maybe that sense of them is only as developed as their brains,” he said finally. “Only as developed as their experiences.”</p><p>“What... do you mean?” she said. Her voice was so low that he could barely hear her over the rain, and yet, he couldn’t miss it.</p><p>He could never miss a word. He couldn’t reach out to take her hand, but she was still stroking the nape of his neck, unmoved. Castle felt - petted. In a really good way.</p><p>“You gonna explain or just leave me hanging?”</p><p>His lips twitched, but he didn’t look over at her to share. He just tried to focus on exploring this idea with her. “While you were pregnant, they were still forming, still unformed. What did they know but the sound of your heartbeat, your voice.”</p><p>“I talked to them. Him,” she laughed a little. The nail of her thumb scraped his hairline behind his ear. “I thought it was only James. Wyatt was a surprise. Hello, babies.”</p><p>He shivered, his skin prickling, awareness running through him. “Surprise,” he echoed, the best he could do while she touched him, while she talked in that low, humming voice.</p><p>“I talked to James, named him, but I guess I was talking to them both. Wyatt, just because I didn’t know he was there, didn’t mean he wasn’t listening. Well. He doesn’t exactly listen now, does he?”</p><p>“He listens,” he murmured. “To you.”</p><p>She sighed and shifted in her seat, but her hand still stroked at his nape, around his ear. “So their experience of the world was just me. That’s what you’re saying. Why then couldn’t I feel them?”</p><p>“Takes time to learn what it is, how it works,” he answered. “Why do you think it’s so hit or miss with Colin? He’s doing everything just to tread water. Whenever he would have some huge revelation, it was always about untangling the threads of who was feeling what, why.”</p><p>“I don’t want the boys to feel like they’re drowning,” she croaked.</p><p>Because she knew the feeling? He thought so, could hear it in her voice. “No, me either, love. But there’s something to be said for the twin thing.”</p><p>Her thumb pressed hard into his skull. “What? Being a twin?”</p><p>“Yeah. Might change things for them. They have each other, they were one in the womb, spoken to as one, thought of as one. What James knows or senses does get transmitted to Wyatt. We’ve both seen that.”</p><p>“Twin language,” she murmured. “I’ve heard of something like that.”</p><p>“Yeah. And I guess you could say that what Colin can do is like that. But it wasn’t until I met you, saw you, had that first kick in the gut of feeling you and the boys, not until then did I realize Colin and I had that too. Low grade. But it was there.”</p><p>“So your experiences with me and the boys have sharpened your ability to discern Colin?”</p><p>“Mm, discern. Yes, I think so. Because now I know what that is. That - that sense of him. Because my sense of you is so permanent and fixed and-”</p><p>“You have a sense of me?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“You didn’t say that,” she murmured, a twinge of anxiety riding in her voice. “Or I guess you did but I thought... I don’t know what I thought.”</p><p>“The moment I saw those boys, Kate, it made sense. Why you hit me like that. Struck. I saw those boys and it clicked into place. Oh, they’re mine. And that’s all I needed.”</p><p>She drew in a shaky breath, a long one, but her fingers resumed stroking his nape, through his hair, scratching at his scalp. Like it helped her think.</p><p>“I’m glad they’re yours,” she murmured finally. “I’m - glad you want them.”</p><p>“And you,” he roughly added, already quite clear on where this was going. He wasn’t going to let her play the martyr, sacrifice herself in some noble gesture to give the boys a better life, or somehow keep Castle safe. He was a fucking CIA agent; life wasn’t safe. And what she was doing was only selfish.</p><p>“And me,” she sighed. Her fingers played around his ear. “You want me. I’m very glad for that.”</p><p>Just like that, arousal tightened in his guts. “Damn right I want you,” he muttered. “You’re mine too. Moment I saw you, scalpel and blood and that fucking bastard dead at your feet, thank God, you were mine.”</p><p>-----</p><p>“Hey, whoa, wait, you’re not supposed to be picking them up-”</p><p>“No, it’s fine,” Castle interrupted his brother, slamming shut the front door as the wind tried to blow rain inside. He watched as Kate cradled Wyatt against her chest, standing up slowly from her crouched her position. She had kisses in his ears, making the boy giggle and squirm, and causing James to look on in perturbed jealousy.</p><p>Castle shook the rain from his hair and sloughed it off his arms, dropping the keys to the kitchen counter as he joined them. Colin was standing just inside the living room, as if he’d been about to intercept Kate, and Castle appreciated it.</p><p>“It’s fine?” Colin repeated.</p><p>“I’ve been cleared,” Kate grinned, kissing Wyatt’s cheeks as he chewed on his fingers, giggling a little more helplessly. “All clear. Everything’s healed up.”</p><p>Colin’s face blanked and his eyes darted to Castle. </p><p>“Yeah,” he said, feeling grim about it now that he was really looking at it. Colin scrubbed a hand down his face and gave Kate a careful assessment, as if trying to figure her out.</p><p>“There’s no more elixir,” Colin told him. His lips thinned and he crossed his arms over his chest. “None.”</p><p>“I’ll get some,” he said quietly.</p><p>Kate’s head snapped up, her eyes fierce and dark. “Go get some? No.”</p><p>“Yes,” Colin and Castle both said. Stereo.</p><p>She shot a bewildered and somewhat betrayed look to Colin, as if she’d been expecting the man to be on his side, and then she looked back to Castle. “No, Castle. It’s not necessary. I’m fine, all healed up, and I’ll nurse the boys, they’ll have-”</p><p>“It’s not fine,” Castle grit out, pinching the bridge of his nose with a finger and thumb. “It’s not fine, Kate. If it’s - working. And it has worked. It’s worked. You shouldn’t be fine after not even two weeks-”</p><p>“So what if it worked? I don’t understand. It’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing. Before it just made me feel like absolute shit.”</p><p>Castle swallowed hard, wishing desperately he could drag his father out of the grave for one last thing, one question What do I have to do to keep her alive? But his father was dead, and Alex was inside the conspiracy, and he didn’t even know why Kate was healed.</p><p>“It’s not supposed to heal you,” Colin answered her, doing the dirty work.</p><p>Kate flinched. James let out a little cry, apparently not happy with being ignored - not any longer, not when his brother was getting all of her attention. So Castle leaned over and picked him up, holding him carefully because he was soaked to the skin.</p><p>Kate was too, but Wyatt didn’t seem to even care. James definitely cared; his nose wrinkled and he held himself rigidly, as if trying to avoid touching him.</p><p>“Castle,” Kate snapped.</p><p>He jerked his head up and stared at her. He’d just done what he’d seen her do - blinders. Denial. Stop listening and look only at one good thing. Pretend the bad wasn’t in the room with them.</p><p>“Castle, tell me what he’s talking about.”</p><p>“Elixir heals me,” he said, doing it simply because he didn’t know how else to do it. “And in the future, if the boys need it, it will heal them too. But it shouldn’t heal you, Kate. You’re not supposed to have the DNA there to make it work.”</p><p>“But wasn’t that the whole point of his pumping me full of this stuff? To have elixir-super babies like them? Because it worked. They’re super. Like you. They’re yours. So-”</p><p>“Three years of pumping you full of elixir doesn’t make you receptive,” Colin muttered. “It makes you sick. Ask our brothers. Ask me for fuck’s sake.”</p><p>Kate’s eyes swung wildly back to Castle, and he winced and tried to somehow make it right. But of course it couldn’t be made right. He still had to - keep talking. Keep trying. “It’s like being given a course of treatment that will only momentarily alleviate a disease - the symptoms, not the thing itself. What Black did to you was the same as... as an advanced form of IVF.”</p><p>She shivered and clutched Wyatt against her chest. “Conditioning,” she got out. “Endurance conditioning. So I could take it for as long as he needed me alive.”</p><p>“Yes,” Castle whispered.</p><p>“And after that?” she murmured, but she wouldn’t look at him. They all knew what happened after that. </p><p>“That’s why the treacherous, perverted old bastard had to die,” Colin growled. “A hundred times over, if I could make it happen.”</p><p>Castle would resurrect his father to save Kate. Not to kill him again. Kate had done it with enough gruesome satisfaction to last him for now.</p><p>“So... now that it’s healed me, does that mean I’m going to die?”</p><p>“No!” Castle startled, jerking towards her. He crossed the whole space of the kitchen with James leaning away, but he snagged his arm around Kate’s neck and pulled her into his chest. “No. You won’t die. You’re not going to die.”</p><p>“You might die,” Colin said snidely.</p><p>Kate actually laughed, but Castle shot his brother a glare, thought about kicking him. “You shut up, asshole.”</p><p>“No, no,” Kate said, shaking her head against his cheek. Wyatt had reached out for his brother, clinging. “No, at least he’s honest.”</p><p>“I’m not lying,” Castle growled at her. “I will not let you die.”</p><p>“No, baby, I know,” she whispered. She laid her forehead against his cheek. He could feel her shaking. She’d used up her strength to pick up Wyatt. </p><p>“I’m not letting you die.”</p><p>Colin cleared his throat as if he was being delicate. “But if we don’t get elixir in you - it’s going to be like weaning you off meth cold turkey. You might die.”</p><p>“Shut the fuck up,” Castle said, turning on his brother. James had a fist in Kate’s shirt though, and it held him back for a moment, tied him up so that he couldn’t get to Colin. “You just start thinking fucking positive. Find me a facility, Colin, since you’re so damn good at it.”</p><p>Colin’s jaw twitched. “I might know of a few more.”</p><p>“I’m not going back there.”</p><p>Castle flinched and turned to Kate, tried to loosen his arm so she wouldn’t feel trapped by his embrace. “No, honey. You’re not going back there. Colin and I will-”</p><p>“No,” she cried out. “Don’t leave me alone.”</p><p>“No, no, sweetheart,” he rasped. “Won’t leave you.” Realizing too late he’d promised contrary, paradoxical things. </p><p>“The trainers?” Colin murmured from behind him. “They might have access to that kind of thing, or know who did. Where we can go to get specific-”</p><p>“What about Alex?” Kate whispered. She was stone-faced again, though a pink tinge of shame showed at her neck. Because she’d fallen apart for a moment there, and he knew that was why, but he wished...</p><p>“Alex won’t work,” Colin said. “He’s part of this.”</p><p>Kate froze.</p><p>Castle sighed and glanced at his brother, then back to Kate. “Yeah, we’re not sure how deep he goes in this, Kate.”</p><p>“I know how fucking deep he is,” Colin snapped. “I know.”</p><p>“You can’t-”</p><p>“I found him,” Colin said, his chest suddenly heaving. He pointed a finger at Kate, as if accusing. “Because of her.”</p><p>“What?” Kate croaked.</p><p>“Colin,” he hissed.</p><p>“The fucking sketch program on the computer. That’s what I’ve been doing all morning while you were off getting cleared to fuck in the backseat of the fucking car-”</p><p>“It was the front-” Kate rolled her eyes.</p><p>“Shit,” Castle gasped, glancing back and forth between them. “How the hell-?”</p><p>“You’re both buzzed with it. Literally. Right in my fucking ear like a wasp.”</p><p>“We didn’t fuck,” Kate muttered. “He just-”</p><p>“Kate.”</p><p>She shrugged and glanced at him, as if supremely unconcerned, but he knew better. Oh, fucking hell did he know better. She was not unconcerned at all. She was trying to play this off as something casual and satisfying, but fuck no, he would not let that-</p><p>“Simmer down, Castle,” Colin snapped. “More important things.” His brother reached out and gripped his shoulder. “You don’t think Alex is in this up to his fucking neck? Then come look at what your girl drew out for us.”</p><p>“What did I do?” Kate said quickly. He could feel her sagging, the struggle she had to keep Wyatt in her arms. “Colin, what did I-”</p><p>“Just look, Castle. Look at it.” Colin had already made it halfway back across the kitchen with the laptop in his arms, cradled as Castle was holding James, a little separate, but infinitely precious. </p><p>Colin turned it around, displaying the screen.</p><p>“What is-” Castle shut his mouth. Stared at the composite image Kate had made. She’d labeled the sketch ‘doctor 5’ and it showed a very clear impression of the brothers one common characteristic.</p><p>The damn nose.</p><p>They all had Black’s fucking nose.</p><p>It angled askew, just a little, right at the bridge. </p><p>Castle swore.</p><p>“Who is that?” Kate said quickly. “Do you know him? Who-”</p><p>Colin glared at them both. “It’s Alex.”</p><p>“It’s fucking Alex,” Castle groaned.</p><p>He was in on this.</p><p>-----</p><p>His brother.</p><p>His brother was the man she'd seen in the hall, talking to Black about trials. His brother was the man-</p><p>She'd been in his apartment. She had been half-dead at the time, bleeding internally and barely conscious for all of it, but she had been in his bed.</p><p>His guest room. Ben's room, if she was remembering it correctly. She had been-</p><p>"We're not going to Alex," Colin said roughly. She swallowed and lifted her eyes to the two brothers, saw the indecision on Castle's face.</p><p>He wanted to trust his brothers. He wanted his brothers to be- "Castle," she got out. "He's your brother. He didn't - didn't turn us in. He could have."</p><p>"He would have," Colin spat. "Don't think for a second he didn't out of kindness. He was looking for his best angle. How to play it up for his own damn advantage. I was inside his head, Castle. Don't mistake me."</p><p>Castle rubbed both hands down his face and growled, his frustration so clear that even she felt it. Inside her own head. "But we can't alienate Alex," she told them. "We need his medical knowledge of this thing. For yourselves, but for the boys too."</p><p>"For you, Kate." Castle reached out and closed his fingers around her bicep, yanking her closer. She stumbled, Wyatt throwing her off-balance, but she fell into Castle, and he held her up with that fierce and protective grip he had.</p><p>James mewled for her, and she ducked her head to kiss the boy's cheek, too distracted to be properly mothering. She just didn't know how they were supposed to do this without Alex's knowledge.</p><p>"We might have to go to him," Castle muttered. "But it'll be me. Alone. Not you, Colin. And definitely, Kate, not with you or the boys either. You'll be somewhere secret. Hidden. Not you."</p><p>She felt that same claustrophobia bearing down on her, the sense of choking that came when she thought of being alone. Why now? After three years, she'd been so very alone.</p><p>Just never solitary. Lonely, but not ever given the peace of her own thoughts. And this - his insistence to leave her behind - made her desolate. She didn't know why. She had been the one urging him to leave her at that rest stop, just leave her on the side of the road, but now it made her guts churn. It made her sick.</p><p>Was it him? Castle sick at the thought. Castle with that connection neither one of them could describe accurately, that neither of them fully understood. </p><p>How could she trust her feelings if that were true? Any of this at all. How-</p><p>"Mama," Wyatt whined, squirming in her arms. She dropped her chin to the top of his head and was reassured. These were her feelings, her anxiety, her worry, her love. Old companions. She knew exactly where it dwelled in her darkest heart, and she knew how it tasted on her tongue. She knew the flavor and the stretch of the love she hadn't wanted but had anyway.</p><p>"Love you, Wyatt," she murmured, kissing the top of his head. He smelled like Castle, or Castle was so close that his heavy winter-woods musk permeated all of them. "You too, James." She let herself use Castle to prop her up, too tired after the doctor's office and the car ride to do much else.</p><p>"And me?" Castle said softly. She froze, but he was grinning, and his kiss brushed her lips, across her cheek, back along her jaw. "Kidding, love. I already know."</p><p>It didn't relax her much, but he stepped away, taking Wyatt out of her arms as he did. She was suddenly light, unburdened, as Castle maneuvered both boys towards the living room. He was acting like the conversation was over, but she knew this was going to come up again. Nothing was settled regarding Alex Black.</p><p>"We should head out soon," Castle told them. "Pick up Eastman. Interrogate-"</p><p>"We aren't interrogating him," Kate said harshly, following on his heels as he set the boys on their feet. "Castle. We're not. He was nice to me. Black got rid of him for that very reason."</p><p>Castle looked at Colin over her head, the two brothers doing that unspoken connection thing, but she slugged him in the shoulder to get his attention.</p><p>He narrowed his eyes at her. "Think about-"</p><p>"No." She pushed past him and sat on the couch, leaning in to gather James into her lap. A not-so-subtle reminder. "They'll be with us. We'll have a nice meeting. We'll go to his house and we'll introduce ourselves, and we will talk like adults in front of our children."</p><p>The blood drained from Castle's face, a blanch that sent his gaze scurrying to Colin. Wyatt grunted from the floor, trying to climb onto the couch with her and James, but she didn't move to get him. Instead she glanced to Colin, and the man threw up his hands.</p><p>"Fine. He'll kill us all. Or he'll call the security team and report us. Or Alex."</p><p>"He won't," Kate said quietly. She knew. She had no doubts. She remembered him. I'm Mark. Let's see what you're made of. "He won't. We're all going. He'll talk to us, and he might know more than anyone gives him credit for."</p><p>Castle growled, but he leaned over and scooped up Wyatt, dumped the boy on the couch beside her. "Fine. All of us. One big happy family."</p><p>-----</p><p>She was impressive.</p><p>Kate sat on the floor in front of the coffee table with himself and Colin and the laptop, and she didn’t falter for a moment. All of her attention was on their planning, and even though Castle had known she’d been trained, he hadn’t realized to what extent.</p><p>The boys were playing with blocks and trucks while the television was on low, some kind of cartoon with a mad scientist and triplets with superpowers. James kept coming back to the table to squirm past Castle and touch his mother, pressing against her back until Kate turned and kissed his cheek or cuddled him.</p><p>But for the most part, she was doing her homework on Mark Eastman.</p><p>Colin had the maps out in front of him, going through reports and military transport convoys, searching for the likely spots of another of their father’s facilities. What they really needed was a lab - a place where the research into the elixir itself went on - and not another training ground for human experiments.</p><p>Kate was searching for Mark, Colin was searching for elixir.</p><p>Castle was trying to be enthusiastic about any of it, but dread had settled in his guts.</p><p>“Oh, I’ve got it,” Kate said softly. As if surprised.</p><p>He glanced at the laptop and saw she had gotten search results back from the military’s database. He was surprised himself, not sure why a guy like Eastman would allow any of his information to be circulating in Military Intelligence.</p><p>“It have an address?” he said, not taking the computer from her. </p><p>She nodded, her eyes glancing to him. “Yeah. Yeah, a place in Connecticut, out in the country. RR 5 - that’s rural route five, right?”</p><p>“Yeah. Huh. Does it only give the street or is there a number?”</p><p>“No number,” she admitted. “But I found property taxes in the name of a Carrie West. What do you want to bet that’s his wife or something?”</p><p>“Maybe,” he muttered. “I knew him in Dessert Storm. He was my handler, but we weren’t chummy. He might have been married even then. He had that... mercy about it.”</p><p>“Kindness,” she murmured.</p><p>Right. Because he’d been nice to her.</p><p>God, that anyone at all had taken a moment to be kind to her - it fucking gutted him out. He wasn’t happy with Eastman, but if he had actually treated Kate like a human being, given her back some dignity or respect-</p><p>More than his own brother had done.</p><p>“Okay, I’ve got the property record right here. Looks like they’ve got twenty acres outside New Hartford.”</p><p>“New?”</p><p>“Yeah, not Hartford itself, but a little rural town northeast of Hartford.”</p><p>“Huh.”</p><p>Kate elbowed his side. “You don’t sound happy.”</p><p>“Twenty acres is a lot of ground to cover.”</p><p>“You think he’d pitfall his own property?”</p><p>Castle nodded tightly. “I would.”</p><p>“Yeah, but you’re-” She cut off whatever she’d been about to say, but he knew well enough. He was paranoid, a freak of nature; he was uptight about security because he’d been raised by a monster.</p><p>“Either way, we’ll have to cover twenty acres of forested rural farmland. It’s going to take a while.”</p><p>“So meet him off-site,” she said. “Neutral ground.”</p><p>“We can’t just call him up and ask to meet,” Castle muttered.</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“It doesn’t work that way, Kate. This life.”</p><p>“Then tell me how it works,” she huffed. </p><p>“Being a CIA agent means nothing is ever really secure.”</p><p>“You don’t have booby traps set out through the woods back there,” she said, nodding to the French doors and the view beyond.</p><p>Colin cleared his throat. “We also don’t have property tax records or a listing in Military Intelligence.”</p><p>“We can do this,” she said hotly. “Just give it a shot. Stop rejecting all of my ideas.”</p><p>“Start coming up with ideas that are actually viable,” Castle hissed. “I’m not trying to belittle you. This is my job, and I’m damned good at it. You’re just guessing.”</p><p>Something struggled over her face that he didn’t recognize, not at first. But then he felt it, felt how his words had struck her, how she’d taken it to mean she wasn’t valuable as a team member for this mission, and he inwardly cursed himself.</p><p>“You were right about one thing,” he said slowly. “Neutral ground. Figure out how we manage that, and then we won’t have a CIA operative defending his home turf.”</p><p>“His wife,” she murmured.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“His wife,” Colin echoed, raising an eyebrow. He had lifted his head from his maps to give Kate and Castle’s argument his attention, but now he rubbed his chin. “His wife.”</p><p>“We meet his wife. We... bump into her at the grocery store. Or downtown. We-”</p><p>“Bump into her,” Castle said. Dumbfounded. Just bump into her. “If there’s really a wife.”</p><p>“Carrie West. Whoever she is, she pays property tax on a home on RR 5, where Eastman supposedly lives. So why isn’t she his wife?”</p><p>“Okay,” Castle decided. “Okay. Do the work. Research this Carrie West. You might be on to something.”</p><p>-----</p><p>“No, honey,” he said softly, catching the back of her head in his hand. “Not today. No more today.”</p><p>“But-”</p><p>His grip tightened and he shook his head. “Not even Colin is out here working on this. And I think James misses you.”</p><p>“I’m just right here,” she mumbled, but with Castle’s fingers in her hair and cradling her skull, she felt suddenly just how very tired she was. The printouts and maps and photos were strewn across the kitchen table where she’d moved her base of operations sometime after dinner.</p><p>“Yeah, but the boys are in their room, and I’m trying to keep them chilled out, but they want you. I’m no good to them.”</p><p>She glanced to the clock in the kitchen and realized it was ten at night. Already. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, glancing to the stacks of pages and plans. “I didn’t realize.”</p><p>Castle scratched his fingers at her scalp and then proceeded to unravel the rubberband from her hair. She groaned and listed into his touch, stunned by how her weariness had hit her like a truck, out of nowhere and just that fast.</p><p>“I could carry you up-”</p><p>“No,” she got out, shaking her head and struggling to rise. Castle offered a hand, but she ignored it, only slightly unsteady on her feet. “Are the boys tired?”</p><p>“Don’t seem to be,” he said, shrugging.</p><p>“I should have played with them this afternoon,” she sighed, shifting past Castle and trying not to look over her shoulder at the information she’d sunk into for the last five hours. “Or after dinner. I should have-”</p><p>“You do what you gotta do, Kate. One afternoon of not playing with them doesn’t mean anything.”</p><p>She nodded, heading for his bedroom and the stairs that led up to the boys’ room. “I think that - um - doctor’s appointment fucked me up.”</p><p>His fingers caught her elbow and stopped her before she could take a step up the stone stairs. She glanced back at him, and she hated the rippling sympathy that washed over his face. </p><p>“Don’t, Castle.”</p><p>He opened his mouth and then shook his head, not speaking, not offering platitudes. Instead he pulled her in for a hug and she tried not to tense up, tried to keep her heart rate steady.</p><p>But he sensed it anyway, or he felt it. His hand cupped the back of her head with a tenderness she didn’t deserve. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”</p><p>“Nothing,” she croaked.</p><p>He rubbed between her shoulder blades, nudged his hips into her own. “Why’ve you been hiding in the mission work all day? It’s not just the doctor’s appointment.”</p><p>She shivered and closed her eyes to keep from seeing his bed. His beautiful king-sized bed with its sheets in disarray where the boys had been wrestling before dinner. All her boys, James and Wyatt and their daddy.</p><p>She wasn’t doing such a good job of not seeing it.</p><p>“Kate?”</p><p>“I don’t want to fall asleep,” she rushed out, fisting the back of his shirt and trying to push herself away from him.</p><p>But Castle’s arms around her were iron bands, and she didn’t move an inch. “You don’t want to fall asleep?” His nose nuzzled against her cheek. “What does that mean-? Oh, fuck. Kate. You’re afraid?”</p><p>“No,” she got out, twisted up inside. “I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. I just - I can’t do it again. I can’t go back in there, but I should, I ought to - but it’s no good, anyway, is it? I could’ve hit that button and escaped and done damage before-”</p><p>“Hey, hush, hush. Kate, no. Honey, no, stop. I mean, it’s true that the panic room doesn’t keep you from getting to me. It only keeps me from getting to you. And I hate that, and I don’t want you in there again. I won’t let you. I was up all night watching you pace-”</p><p>“Watching me,” she echoed, forgetting for a second that he’d been able to see her on Colin’s camera inside. “Oh. I...”</p><p>“You’re not going back in there.”</p><p>She squeezed her eyes shut. “But I’m not safe for you.”</p><p>“I don’t want safe. I want you.”</p><p>“I can’t fall asleep,” she whimpered. “I can’t. I’ll go back out to the kitchen and work on the project until you’re awake for good and then you can keep watch-”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>She shuddered, gripping his shirt again. She couldn’t figure out if she was trying to push him away or cling closer. “Please,” she husked. “Please don’t make me hurt you-”</p><p>“You won’t hurt me if you sleep with me tonight. You’ll only hurt me if you leave me in some misguided effort to keep me safe.”</p><p>She sagged against him, unable to find a way around it, coming up against the hard brick wall of his insistence. “Castle. Please-”</p><p>“I won’t. You’re going to be right beside me. All night. And you know I rarely get more than four hours’ sleep, Kate. So it’s not like a huge window of opportunity-”</p><p>“Restrain me,” she said, lifting her head. His face blanched and horror slipped behind his eyes, but she was undeterred. “Velcro restraints are harmless. Or handcuffs if you don’t have those. Oh, God, anything is better. Your damn tie. Just keep me from getting to you. Keep me from - from getting a knife.”</p><p>Castle clasped her jaw in his fingers, his eyes glittering danger. “I am not tying you up. Are you fucking kidding me? I am not tying you up.”</p><p>“It’s the only way, it’s the only thing - what else am I supposed to do? I’ll lie awake all night terrified I’m going to kill you.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“The panic room isn’t any good unless - no, I know. You sleep in the panic room. You’ll be safe from me. I can’t get-”</p><p>“I am not hiding like a coward in my panic room when there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of. You’re not going to hurt me. I won’t let it happen.”</p><p>“But in your sleep-”</p><p>“God damn it, woman. It’s not happening.”</p><p>She was desperate. “I’ll spend the night upstairs. In the room beside the boys’ - the room above Colin’s. Close the door between them and - it’s better than nothing. It could slow it down at least and I might, I might have one of those blackouts but I’d see the boys first, and I wouldn’t - would I? I wouldn’t hurt them-” She sucked in a terrible, hard breath. “Would I hurt them? I don’t know, oh God, I don’t know. Would-”</p><p>“No, no, Kate. Stop. Stop.” He was gripping her hard but she could barely breathe past the clutch of grief rising in her throat. </p><p>If she hurt those boys all because she couldn’t control the trauma, the aftereffects of trauma- </p><p>Castle growled. “Fine. Fine, you win. I will - fuck - we’ll find restraints. For tonight. But you have to absolutely be in that damn bed with me. I won’t have you tied up and away from me, where I can’t get to you if you need me. No.”</p><p>She let out a breath, relief so great it weighed her down, and she threw her arms around his neck, shamed by the tears that coursed down her cheeks.</p><p>Castle sighed and caught her up in his embrace, lifting her off her feet. His words were a low growl in his chest that almost seemed to be transmitted directly to her heart. “I love you, Kate, and I’m only doing this because you absolutely need rest. Oh, baby, please just lay it down and rest.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Colin stared at him.</p><p>“Well, do you?” Castle growled, shifting in between his brother and Kate. </p><p>Colin, still staring dumb-founded, took a step back - and into a pile of junk lined up against the wall. A TV stand wobbled on its three-legged precariousness, and a bicycle chain rattled and fell to the floor. </p><p>Kate gripped the back of Castle’s shirt and pressed up against his side. He felt the way she shook despite the strength in her muscles, the rigidity of her body, but he didn’t look at her.</p><p>“Colin,” he snapped. “Do you have soft restraints or fucking fuzzy handcuffs or something?”</p><p>Colin jerked and rubbed a hand down his face, turned away from them to go rummaging. “Yeah,” he croaked out. “Yeah, I got... something here.”</p><p>Castle was furious, and he knew it wasn’t his brother’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but a dead man’s, and he had no fucking outlet for the rage he wanted to inflict on John Black. So he was barely containing it, and Colin could feel it, and fuck, Kate probably too.</p><p>Colin fumbled with a stack of engine parts - radiator duct assembly, main floor diffuser, air filter - and then produced a clear plastic storage box. It baffled Castle that the pieces of auto parts hanging out in his brother’s room came from a variety of moving vehicles, from motorboats to motorcycles, but soft restraints were in a neat box, packed in with a variety of items that had nothing to do with sex.</p><p>Or a mission.</p><p>Castle saw a stack of SIM cards, a broken picture frame, and a magnification mirror. And then Colin pulled out a pair of soft, flexible handcuffs.</p><p>“Purple,” Kate breathed, and then a strangled laugh came out of her mouth. </p><p>Castle reached out and snagged them, faintly uneasy about the silky soothing feel of the cuffs, disgusted by how they sparkled. “Thanks,” he gruffed, his heart pounding.</p><p>“I - uh - I don’t want ‘em back, big brother.”</p><p>Kate choked on another laugh, burying her face against Castle’s shoulder blade before turning and stepping around junk to leave Colin’s room.</p><p>Castle gritted his teeth and stared down his brother until Colin shook his head and held up both hands. “No, I get it. I understand. She wants it.”</p><p>Castle’s cheeks flushed, and Colin laughed, eyebrow raising, and it was just getting worse.</p><p>“I’m afraid she’ll do something drastic if I don’t agree,” Castle finally got out. </p><p>“You’re right,” Colin nodded. “Like stab you in-”</p><p>“No,” he said fiercely. “No, she won’t. But she’ll try to hurt herself if I don’t.”</p><p>Colin, hands still raised in surrender, backed off and said nothing more.</p><p>Castle turned and went after Kate with the silky purple handcuffs caressing his fingers.</p><p>Or his fingers caressing the cuffs.</p><p>It was hard to say.</p><p>-----</p><p>“Behind my back?” she murmured, casting her eyes to him.<br/>Castle flinched and roughly shook his head, still standing in the middle of his bedroom with the handcuffs clenched in a fist. She had changed into leggings and a t-shirt, another one of his, smelled like him, but Castle hadn’t come near her.</p><p>“Castle, if you won’t do it through the bed frame, then I can still get-”</p><p>“No, Kate,” he said gruffly. His eyes closed and then flared sharply. “I’m not handcuffing your arms over your head all damn night.”</p><p>“You said you only slept four hours,” she mumbled, chewing on her bottom lip. Trying not to fidget. She wished he would just get this over with. She was already halfway to panic just thinking about being restrained.</p><p>But she could see him changing his mind, even now. She could feel him wavering. He didn’t want to do this.</p><p>She was going to have to convince him.</p><p>Kate released her bottom lip and purposefully relaxed her spine, let her hips lead as she walked slowly towards him. His hand clenched around the cuffs, and his head turned as if he didn’t want to look at her straight. She could feel the heat of him even from a distance, and when she got close enough, she let her body carefully drape his, melting into that warmth.</p><p>His free arm came around her immediately, like a reflex, his nose buried in her hair.</p><p>She held him, arms loose around his waist, and stroked a hand up his back, each bump and knot of his spine, picturing it in her mind, feeling the breadth and length of him once more, like sense memory.</p><p>Castle croaked out a curse and made a fist at her lower back, brought her hips in to be cradled by his. He was breathing harder now, she could feel his heart beating at her own throat where she laid against him, and he husked her name.</p><p>“Please,” she said. “Please do this for me.”</p><p>He groaned, both arms around her now, his body practically bowed over hers. She could feel the way he subsumed himself for her, submitted to her, the way he gave way - and yet he remained rigidly certain of himself and what ought to be happening.</p><p>“Castle,” she whispered. She skated a palm up his chest and curled her fingers at the back of his neck, not looking at him, her cheek to his shoulder, just tickling the hair at his nape, feeling the smooth weft. “Castle, don’t you love me?”</p><p>“Oh, God,” he moaned. “Oh, God, I love you so much.” His hand caught the back of her head and his mouth bullied hers, dark and dangerous and needy in a way he hadn’t begun to let her feel before now. Intoxicating, the way he gave himself over to her in this peculiar form of dominance.</p><p>She had known it was a terrible thing to say, a dirty and underhanded trick, but he was yielding even as he took, he was surrendering even as he manhandled her into his body.</p><p>She kissed him back. Oh, she had to. She needed it, kissing him, the burn and the blaze, the fire of being consumed. She ached for those fingers in her panties again, for his mouth on her breasts. She had to have him - but only if it was safe.</p><p>His fingers traced her cheekbone and down her jaw, his thumb pressed insistently into her throat. She gasped for breath only to have his kiss devour her, and his hand dragged hard down her sternum. Her breasts grew heavy, her nipples still numbed from nursing, but suddenly raw, weeping at just his touch.</p><p>Before she could fathom the wet slide of his tongue, his fingers circled her wrist and squeezed, sharply painful at the pressure point of her pulse.</p><p>She grunted, but he had bonded her inside the nylon cuffs just that fast. Her mouth went dry and his kiss broke, one hand wrapping around the short half inch strap that kept her wrists from straying.</p><p>She could stretch a little ways, she could rotate her wrists, but the neoprene or silicone core beneath the silk wasn’t going far.</p><p>She opened her eyes and saw him staring at her. He looked both miserable and aroused, and she knew the feeling.</p><p>Her fingers unfurled and she caught the front of his pants, tugging at the zipper. </p><p>“Kate,” he warned.</p><p>“I can still get at you,” she murmured, heat suffusing her cheeks. “This isn’t enough. It won’t keep me-”</p><p>“I’ll keep you,” he growled. “I’m keeping you.”</p><p>He crowded forward, his sheer size pushing her back towards the bed. She managed not to stumble, not intimidated, just helplessly aroused. It was ridiculous, to want him so much more now that she was restrained, but it was like he had flipped a switch or turned a key inside her, allowed her true freedom now that she couldn’t hurt him.</p><p>Almost, almost. She was so close.</p><p>“Behind my back, at least,” she said, holding her ground to keep him from bulldozing her right down to the bed. “That way-”</p><p>“You can’t sleep with your hands cuffed behind you,” he argued. “Believe me - I know. I’ll sleep at your back, my arms around you - it’ll keep you pinned.”</p><p>“And when you fall asleep?”</p><p>Castle huffed and put his hands on his hips, glowering. “You won’t-”</p><p>“I might,” she snapped. “Do this right, Castle. Don’t make it worthless, what I’m doing for you.”</p><p>“For me?” he hissed. He reached in and snagged the strap between the bracelets, lifted her arms up by the cuffs. “This?” He shook them, her arms along for the ride, jiggling. “This isn’t for me. When I want you bound, it’ll be-”</p><p>Castle cursed and dropped the strap, her arms falling as he stalked away from her. Kate was trying to mentally unsee the hot picture he’d just planted in her head, dirty things where her ankles were lashed to the bedposts so that her legs were spread wide.</p><p>Her heart was thudding crazily. Out of time, out of sync. She didn’t know if it was lust or panic; she wasn’t sure they weren’t the same when it came to him.</p><p>Castle came back to her and she snapped out of her daydream in time to see the sober black tie in his fist. The tail dragged the floor. He grabbed her by the bicep and propelled her to the bed with a rage that was more bleak than passionate.</p><p>Her kinky thoughts dipped, drowned. Castle was heaving every breath, his eyes were suspiciously shiny. He looked absolutely miserable.</p><p>But he was looping the neck tie around the strap that bound her wrists together. She held her breath, studying the grief on his face, making herself memorize it, remember it, because this was all her own damn fault.</p><p>She couldn’t control herself, and everyone was paying the price.</p><p>Castle brought one end of the tie towards the head of the bed and then stopped, closing his eyes for a second like he was trying to get himself together. “Lie down,” he said roughly. And then clearing his throat, tried again. “Please. Lie down so it will reach.”</p><p>Kate leaned back, used a heel dug into the mattress to scoot up in bed so that she had her head on the pillow. Castle wouldn’t look at her face, wouldn’t look at all, and it took him another moment for his eyes to open and his task to resume.</p><p>Her wrists were pulled up only to a position just under her breasts, as if she were tucking her arms in to defend herself from a rain of blows. She let out a slow breath and experimentally tugged, testing the bonds.</p><p>“Don’t worry. I tied the knot tight,” he said gruffly. “You wouldn’t be able to pick it apart in days, let alone four hours.”</p><p>She let out a shaky breath and nodded. </p><p>Castle’s eyes stayed steadfastly on the place where he’d tied her, but after too long like that, Kate shifted her prayered hands to touch his thigh, the curve of his waist where he sat so close to her on the bed.</p><p>“Rick.”</p><p>He closed his eyes, again, again that sense of being struck that filled his face the second before he could crush his feelings. She hated herself, she hated the whole stupid project John Black had put her through, but she wished it didn’t feel so strange, being tied up by this man.</p><p>Part of her really liked it. Part of her wondered if she’d ruined certain games for them in the future, special fun that he’d never do with her now after this.</p><p>She felt like she’d lost something. Like something had been taken from her she had never known existed.</p><p>Kate scratched her fingers over his thigh, hoping to draw his eyes down to hers. “Rick, kiss me so I don’t feel so lonely.”</p><p>His gaze dropped to hers, all that terrible grief and aching love that just completely overwhelmed them both. She gave a helpless noise, impatient and wishing it wasn’t this way, stricken with the thought that it might always be this way. </p><p>She might always be damaged, this damaged.</p><p>Castle’s fingers uncurled from the tie around the headboard and skated down to the inside of her wrists where they kissed together. He circled her wristbone slowly, his eyes studying her skin and not her face.</p><p>He still hadn’t kissed her. He hadn’t said a word.</p><p>Castle brushed his thumb along her wrist and then down her arm to the crease of her elbow. She let out a breath and her hips shifted restlessly. She wished he would lie down on top of her and press her into the mattress, all of him.</p><p>He touched his palm to her stomach and she mewled, something slick between her legs, wet and hot and soaking the material of her pants. She hadn’t worn underwear; she wished she had only worn underwear.</p><p>“Rick, please,” she whispered.</p><p>He leaned in over her and softly, so very lightly, kissed the corner of her mouth. His palm stayed warm on her stomach though his thumb stroked up just under her breast.</p><p>She could weep. But he might take it the wrong way.</p><p>“Crawl in with me,” she husked. “Right here. You promised to hold me.” Hold her down, but she carefully kept that out of it.</p><p>Castle closed his eyes and stood up from the mattress, and then she watched as he stripped his clothes off, one by one, as if to give her a show. She hungrily took in the sight of his chest, broad and cut diamond hard, his skin a warm golden color, the hair that was soft just below his belly button leading down to the thickness that she knew was his cock.</p><p>She had to take a breath when he bent over to retrieve his pants, the flex and curl of muscle and sinew, the hard ungiving bone. He folded his pants and placed them on the chair beside the bed, and then he put a knee on the mattress at her hip.</p><p>The other knee straddled her waist, and she could see the bulge in his boxer briefs, imagine all to well what laid beneath. Castle passed over her and came down on all fours, and then lowered his hips, to settle in at her side.</p><p>“Turn,” he said finally, his arm sliding around her waist. </p><p>Kate shivered but rolled onto her side, her back to him, his arm a strength around her, pinning her arm between him and her body, the other under the mattress.</p><p>“Closer,” he rasped.</p><p>She scooted back as gracefully as she could, wriggling until her ass met the particular heat she knew so well, craved so desperately.</p><p>His cock fit at her ass, his thighs beneath hers. She let out a shaky breath and his arm tightened around her, his hand coming up to cup her elbow. She lowered her chin and placed a kiss to the curve of his bicep where his arm was so strong, banded around her.</p><p>He still hadn’t given her the kiss she’d asked for.</p><p>Castle slowly adjusted her body to his own, her wrists tugging only a little against the restraints. She wanted very badly for him to ease his hand inside her leggings and between her legs, while she also wanted his cock there, in that special heat she felt, coming at her from this very direction.</p><p>She had never thought she’d want to, but the feeling of him at her back was overpowering.</p><p>Kate unfurled her fingers and touched the cords of muscle that traveled along his forearm where he held her. “You didn’t kiss me,” she murmured, craning her neck to kiss his wrist.</p><p>His fingers closed around his palm. He shivered at her back and held her closer, coming up on one elbow to kiss the crease of her neck.</p><p>“I’ll kiss you awake, when I can take these off you. Until then, misery loves company.” And his arm tightened again, and Castle buried his face in her hair, hanging on to her as if for dear life. Heartbeats thumped and went quiet again, easy, and her breathing slowed, safe now, totally safe.</p><p>His body was draped almost completely over hers, and he was heavy, but she was blissfully posing not a moment’s danger, and no threat.</p><p>Despite herself, she was falling asleep.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Well, fuck.</p><p>Kate Beckett had actually fallen asleep.</p><p>It was like being in a too-small rowboat on the ocean and in the eye of the storm. He knew it was going to get bad again, but right now, rocking on the waves with her in his arms, he could pretend this was the peace he’d wanted for them.</p><p>He didn’t dare breathe. Her body was warm and curled tightly around her cuffed hands, that self-defensive fetal position that didn’t seem protect her at all. She was so long-limbed, and yet like this she was a small target, barely there at all.</p><p>Barely here at all.</p><p>Castle let out a slow breath and lifted his head, propped himself up on an elbow behind her. He inched his other arm away from her, marginally releasing his pressure on her torso, but Kate let out a strange little noise, like she might wake, and he had to stop.</p><p>He would not risk waking her. Not after all of that.</p><p>Castle tucked his arm between her clasped hands, her bound hands, and he made an effort at relaxing. It was a heroic effort, but doomed to failure.</p><p>He couldn’t relax when she was tied up. He couldn’t relax. He couldn’t-</p><p>He couldn’t do this.</p><p>He couldn’t. He couldn’t tie her up; he couldn’t go through with it. He didn’t want to tie her up, like his dad had done, he didn’t want to do that to her when she was - when she was - everything. He couldn’t do this. This was wrong.</p><p>He was fumbling at the black necktie with one clawed hand, trying not to shake the mattress, desperate to undo it - undo everything. He dug into the knot, furious with himself for following her fucked-up orders. She was damaged; she had said as much herself. Why the fuck was he listening to her? She didn’t know what she needed, didn’t know what was right at all.<br/>John Black had been in charge of what was right and wrong, what was necessary and what could be done away with. For three fucking years. John Black. A ten minute ice-cold shower. Sludge instead of a meal. Elixir pumped senselessly through her body just to make her a house for future generations of super soldiers.</p><p>No more.</p><p>He couldn’t get the knot undone. And the cuffs were real - they weren’t fucking sex toys - they were pocket ez-cuffs, and the key was on her bedside table (stupid fucking move, Castle), and he really had to untie her. He really had to untie her. He was not okay with this.</p><p>This was not okay.</p><p>He got his finger into the knot and worked at it, gritting his teeth to keep from shaking the mattress. He couldn’t wake her - disaster, it would be - he had to be fucking smart. If he untied her and she slept through the night and woke up without restraints, then it would prove that she didn’t need them, that he could handle anything she - he could handle it.</p><p>If she woke and she wasn’t cuffed, she would know that he-</p><p>Castle stilled, a horrible twisting in his guts.</p><p>If she woke and the cuffs were gone, she would know that he couldn’t be trusted to keep his promises.</p><p>And so if he promised to keep her safe, and if he promised she wouldn’t hurt him, and he also promised to tie her up, then his credibility was shot. </p><p>Fucking hell.</p><p>Castle sank back to the mattress, covering his eyes with a hand. </p><p>He knew better than this; he fucking knew better than this. He had worked assets his whole damn life, manipulating women and men alike to do exactly what he wanted them to do, and the number one fucking reason they did it? They trusted him.</p><p>Even if he lied all day, they’d believed (true or not) that Castle was their fallback, Castle was their support, and Castle was more than fucking capable.</p><p>His men in the military had followed him into the fucking darkest unknowns because they knew he had their backs. They knew.</p><p>And he would never convince Kate of anything, ever, if it looked like he’d lied to her.</p><p>He should never have promised; he should never have let her talk him into this. He knew better, and it was up to him to fucking know better. How the fuck could she be responsible for anything when she’d been imprisoned and caged for the last three years? Beckett hadn’t even managed to go outside of the bounds of their house, let alone truly experience freedom.</p><p>She hadn’t taken the car and gone for groceries. She hadn’t said the boys need a haircut, I’m taking them into town. She hadn’t even crossed the damn creek.</p><p>Beckett had no idea how to be uncaged. John Black had done his usual mindfuck, and he had convinced her she ought to be contained, restrained, that she was harmful to other people now that she was a trained killer.</p><p>Fucking trainers. Fuck Mark Eastman. Fuck him. Castle was going to break his fucking neck the moment they got in the door. Train her to be a fucking killer and then leave her with John Black, leave her there and say fucking nothing to anyone.</p><p>Mark Eastman should have known better.</p><p>Fuck. Rick Castle should have known better. He let her pleading, her fingers touching his stomach, her nearness and the darkness in her eyes and her don’t you love me?</p><p>His heart sank, his hand dropped from his eyes, and he stared up at the dark ceiling. The light from the moon made the room ghostly, unnatural phosphorescent where it touched the stone.</p><p>Don’t you love me?</p><p>He didn’t dare ask her the same.</p><p>Soldier through, Richard. Soldier through.</p><p>-----</p><p>When her body twitched under his arm, he loosened his hold. Only a little, but enough if she needed to move. When she jerked and opened her eyes, he held his careful distance, wary of nighttime terrors and the ways they took hold.</p><p>He’d been through this kind of thing with Colin, but more importantly, he’d seen what Kate could do when she wasn’t herself.</p><p>And then - eyes wide open, body rigid - she screamed.</p><p>Instinct propelled him on top of her, pushing her flat to her back, his hands cradling her head. “Kate,” he shouted, and then trying to soften his voice, trying not to shock her. “Kate, hey, baby, it’s me. It’s just me. Kate, honey, wake up.”</p><p>The noise died out in her chest, a deep and terrible agony, and he felt her hands scrabbling at his chest, her bound hands, the grip of her fingers in the twist of his shirt.</p><p>“Kate,” he croaked, shaking above her. His elbows dug into the mattress at her sides; he caressed meaningless nonsense through her hair, her jaw, her cheeks. The black necktie crossed under his throat at his chin and quivered with tension. “Kate. Please, honey. Please.”</p><p>A gasp and then a sobbing breath in and she was awake, back again, her eyes huge, luminous, cast in moonlight and yet reflecting nothing. Black.</p><p>“Kate,” he husked, framing her face with his hands. His body was held off of hers by elbows and knees, but he knew she could feel him just as he could feel her. She was brittle with tension, skin bloodless and chilled. “Kate.”</p><p>“Castle,” she gasped.</p><p>And then tears flooded her eyes and streaked back to her ears, constant, never ceasing. She closed her eyes and cried weakly, but her fingers curled in his shirt as if she were hanging on for dear life.</p><p>She was trembling.</p><p>“I got you,” he promised. He stroked his thumbs under her eyes and back along her cheeks, drawing off tears, dusting them from her earlobes and the shell of her ear. “It’s okay, honey. We’re taking this off. We won’t do this again. We tried but it doesn’t help you sleep at all.”</p><p>She was crying too much to really hear him, he supposed, or she was just that exhausted. He cupped the back of her neck with one hand and reached past her for the key on the bedside table. Her face was blotched, the blanched white giving way to spots of terrified red, and she was still shaking below him.</p><p>Her fingertips touched together before her chest like she was praying.</p><p>“Here,” he murmured, shoving the key into the rubberized locking mechanism. They were trickier than he liked. “I got you. It’s going to be better now, love. It’ll be so much better.”</p><p>The rubber jerked as the lock sprung, and then Castle had the cuffs pulled off of her and thrown over the side of the bed where they dangled by the black necktie. </p><p>In a move he hadn’t expected, Kate surged up into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and crying harder, dragging him down. He could feel her shaking, feel her sobbing, the weight of her terror undiminished even as it faded. Castle pushed off with his knees and pulled her up to sit at the headboard, and her body was locked and rigid, her elbows up as if to defend herself.</p><p>"I'm not leaving," he warned her, stroking her hair, rocking her a little. "I'm staying right here with you. Just a dream, love. You're okay now. It's okay."</p><p>She didn't speak, but her hands were in tight fists clenching his shirt. Her sobbing was messy and breathless, and as it went on, her fists began shoving at him, a wildness in her strength that forced him off.</p><p>"Kate," he murmured, catching an elbow before she could shudder away from him. "Kate, honey, it's okay. You're awake, we're never going back there. He's dead."</p><p>She was sucking at the air like it wouldn't come, one arm wrapped protectively around her ribs and her fingers clutching her own shirt. She sobbed helplessly whenever he pulled her closer and after a second he realized she'd fallen off the edge into a panic attack - and she was terrified of it.</p><p>"Okay, it's okay," he said, berating himself for not seeing it earlier. "A panic attack. That's all. You can do this. Breathe out, force all the air out of your lungs, baby."</p><p>Her eyes darted to his and held, such terror in those black depths that it scared him - pushed her fear straight into him. Fear for him. Her knees drew up and she tried to curl in on herself - and away from him.</p><p>"No, honey, you won't hurt me. It's not a black out, is it? You're still here. You're right here, and I know it's crushing you, but you'll make it. Breathe, Kate."</p><p>Air forced out of her lungs on a whine, and her eyes slammed shut only to flare widely open again, seeking him. He caught her wrists in one hand but that made her hyperventilate, so he let go fast, cupping her elbow instead.</p><p>"Okay, sorry, my fault. Breathe, honey. On my count, okay? In on one - two - three, very good, and breathe out one - two - three. In-"</p><p>She sucked at breath like she was drowning, but it came, it would come to her, it was just a matter of time. Her flails against him ceased and her little bird heart began to slow its thrashing. He lightly cupped her face, timing her breaths still, murmuring quietly, and she listed into him.</p><p>"There we go," he soothed, knowing she was still on that ragged line between panic and exhaustion. "Here we are, we're okay. We're both okay, aren't we? Breathing makes it easier."</p><p>She grunted, something like no duh maybe, but she released a shaky hand and clung to his arm, her body still rocked by her uneven, gulping breaths.</p><p>"Steady, love," he said, finding himself relaxing now too. He smiled into her hair and kissed her temple, tasting her sweat and the cold of her skin. Her scalp was prickled with sweat, the back of her shirt, but her hands, her face and neck were clammy. "You got this."</p><p>He vaguely registered sounds from the room above, the boys stirring or tuned into her, but he hoped that the quieter Kate got in her own head, the quieter the boys would be.</p><p>For now, he combed his fingers through her damp hair and counted breaths under his own breath. Her knees slowly sank, her hand dropped from his arm to his thigh like she had no energy left, and her eyes began to droop. </p><p>He had the irrational urge to hum nonsense until she slept, like a lullaby, like she had done to the boys tonight while she'd nursed them. </p><p>He wondered, suddenly, painfully, if she missed her mom.</p><p>-----</p><p>Her eyes slid open.</p><p>The world was slow to configure, rendered in blurred angles.</p><p>She closed her eyes to it, turned her head. Salt taste in her mouth. Stiffness in her body, but not cold.</p><p>She wasn’t cold.</p><p>Her eyes flared open, and this time the room slid into focus so easily she couldn’t believe she’d missed it before.</p><p>“Castle,” her voice cracked. He moved from beside the bed to sitting on it with her, and she saw just past him the top of Wyatt’s head.</p><p>“Hey, guys, look. Mommy’s finally awake.”</p><p>She swallowed roughly, her throat dry, her mouth rubbery. She’d had that dream again. She’d been in it so long, so far under, that even waking this morning felt altered. She felt altered.</p><p>Castle’s fingers stroked against her forehead. “You had a kind of restless sleep. You tired? I can take the boys out.”</p><p>She tried out an answer, not even sure what it was, but she pushed herself to sit up, forcing the ache out of her bones. Castle reached out and helped - mostly arranging her a little more carefully at the headboard - and she sank back against the padded frame. </p><p>“Boys stay,” she said finally. “What time is it?”</p><p>“Seven. Earliest they’ve woken up so far. But are we really gonna not talk about it?”</p><p>“About-? You took the cuffs off.” She frowned at him but even she realized she was rubbing her wrist with that anxiety-laced self-soothing movement. “How long did I last before-?”</p><p>“About an hour,” he sighed, shifting to sit beside her. From there he leaned over and picked up James from the floor, dumped the boy in her lap so that he let out a breath - almost a giggle.</p><p>“An hour,” she mumbled, but she gave James her smile, leaning in over him to kiss his cheeks. “Morning, baby boy. You look happy.”</p><p>“They both are,” Castle said, leaning back with Wyatt in his arms. Wyatt came crawling out from under Castle’s hold, giggling like it was a regular game they played, his daddy pinning him with an arm just as he managed to wriggle free. All giggles. </p><p>Kate ducked in and kissed the top of Wyatt’s head, and when her chin lifted, Castle was right there. He was just - right there. She didn’t mean to do it, she hadn’t thought it ahead of time, but she found herself pressing her lips to the corner of Castle’s mouth and lingering.</p><p>He let out a little sound, surprise maybe or hope, and when she pulled back he looked about as stunned as she felt.</p><p>And then his face cleared and something came over him, like acknowledgement or recognition - or like he had finally gotten it. He understood something he hadn’t before. </p><p>His hand lifted and he combed her hair back from her face, pushed it behind her ear. His fingers were thick and the hook at her ear made her cheeks flush, thinking about his fingers in other places, thick as they were, about the agility and the-</p><p>“Are we gonna talk about your panic attack last night or are you going to kiss me again?”</p><p>“Mm, is that what I did?” She flicked her finger along James’s ear and avoided looking at Castle, but it was only a stalling tactic, and she knew it. James wriggled in her lap and shoved on his brother, and Kate petted the soft curl of hair at his nape.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s what you did,” Castle murmured. “Kissed me to shut me up. You’re very good at misdirection.”</p><p>She laughed, surprised by it, surprised more by his pop psychology. “I meant - was that what it was last night? A panic attack. Felt like a nightmare. But please, do tell me more about how I distract you with kisses.”</p><p>He grinned back, shook his head at her. “Alright. I deserve that. But that’s what you do. Self-defense, I’m sure, but you said we’d shrink each other, Kate. And part of that is talking about the scary shit in our nightmares.”</p><p>“You don’t have nightmares, so it hardly seems fair,” she muttered.</p><p>“Not literal ones. But I have this one nightmare where you finally see me for what I am - my father’s son - and you leave me. Just... clear out while you still can.”</p><p>She stared at him, her heart fluttering strangely in her chest. Not panic attack, not I might be dying, but a good kind of jolting, like being restarted after a long time in cold storage.</p><p>“I see you,” she said finally, the words inane once they left her mouth. “You’re... you.” God, she felt helpless. She braced James as he tried to stand on her thighs, struggling for an answer that would mean something. “Castle, besides that connection thing - if you weren’t a good man, James and Wyatt wouldn’t have anything to do with you.”</p><p>Her heart was racing when Castle’s arm slid around her shoulders, but everything eased when he tugged her in against him. He cleared his throat, the sound of him right at her ear, and his lips brushed her cheek.</p><p>“Thank you for saying that.” He pressed his forehead in against her jaw. “I don’t think I realized just how much I need that to be true. But - ah, see? That’s why we talk about these things.”</p><p>She grunted but she’d walked into it. A neat trap. “It’s just a dream, Castle. It’s just being right back there and thinking this was all the dream instead. Back in the recovery room, velcro restraints, waiting for whatever comes next. It’s just a dream. Now.” She swallowed hard and wrapped her arms around James’s waist. “Now, it’s just a dream.”</p><p>“And then you had a panic attack and I took the cuffs off and we’re agreed we’re never doing that again.”</p><p>“Doing what?” she mumbled, inhaling the mild scent of James’s baby soap she had bought just the other day. Laid over that was Castle, the male scent of work and body, the faint tang of deodorant masking sweat. She really loved smelling him on these little boys when for so long it was-</p><p>“Are you serious?” Castle sighed. “Handcuffs. Restraints. We’re not doing that again. It’s not worth it. You fell back asleep, but Kate, it was all night long, waking without being awake, crying-”</p><p>“I didn’t cry,” she hissed.</p><p>“All night, Kate. Cried in your sleep. Probably too exhausted to even wake up.”</p><p>She ground her teeth but it wasn’t like he was lying. Just to prove a point. “I don’t know how I’m going to sleep if I can’t be sure you’re safe-”</p><p>“I’m safe. Fucking hell, woman, I am fine. You’re so tired, you’re weak. You couldn’t get me if you tried.”</p><p>She set her jaw. “I don’t want to try. I want to know that I can’t flip out and do serious damage. I want to know that no matter what fucking nightmare is going on inside my damaged head, it won’t spill out over you. Or them.”</p><p>“Mommy.” James’s little hands caught her face and she glanced at him, a doubletake at the seriousness of his face. “Mommy.”</p><p>“I’m not mad,” she sighed, cupping the back of his head and kissing his cheek. “I promise I’m not mad at daddy. Just mad at me.”</p><p>“I think he knows that,” Castle sighed. “I think that’s why he’s so indignant. And I agree. You can’t put these kinds of expectations on yourself after three years of being treated like a lab rat, Kate. Worse. I don’t want you to hurt anyone either, I definitely don’t. But more than that, love, I don’t want you to battle those nightmares alone.”</p><p>Her shoulders were hunched, her back stiff, her quads coiled with tension. And she knew it. But she didn’t know how to stop, how to keep the thought of Castle coming inside her head and being here for it all from making her want to turn tail and hide.</p><p>“I want to partner you in this, Kate. Be right at your side for it. Everything. If you need a way to feel safe so that you can sleep, we will find a way.”</p><p>“I feel safe,” she mumbled, picking at it because she could. Because it was all she could pick at. Because he was right somehow, even as everything in her rebelled against the idea of trusting herself.</p><p>“You don’t feel that I’m safe-”</p><p>“You’re safe,” she said quickly, straightening up. “I’m not afraid of you, Castle. You’re not him, you’re nothing like him at all. The most opposite - I’m so damn lucky it’s you.”</p><p>Castle blinked, and then that slow and brilliant smile lit up his whole face. His eyes crinkled, his mouth wide, and he leaned in and kissed her. </p><p>His tongue against her lips and inside, the incessant tug and pull of his kiss made her want all the things she hadn’t let herself think about yesterday after that drive yesterday. After that pulled over on the side of the road, fingers in her panties, searing hot orgasm yesterday.</p><p>Castle leaned back, Wyatt and James jostling for space between them, some kind of good-natured wrestling that made Kate too far away from him. Castle shook his head though and looped his arm around Wyatt to corral him.</p><p>“I meant, Kate, you don’t think I’m safe with you. That I might get hurt, sweetheart, and I understand that. I saw that last night, how much you’re struggling to keep everything together, how you won’t drop your guard for a second. Afraid of yourself. But, damn, Kate, love. Hearing that from you - that you feel that way at all - makes me feel like I...”</p><p>She stared at him, two boys between them and messing with each other, crawling and butting heads and climbing arms, and yet Castle seemed like the only person alive right now.</p><p>“You feel like what?” she said.</p><p>His hand curled around Wyatt’s ankle to keep him in place, and his eyes dropped, but the words came out. “You make me feel like I’m invincible. Nothing can hurt me if you’re right here. Nothing can touch me. I’m the king of the whole damn world.”</p><p>Kate brushed her fingers against her cheeks and stared down at James in her lap, had to swipe again when the emotion rolled out.</p><p>“Kate?”</p><p>She lifted her head. He at least deserved that much.</p><p>But he wasn’t looking at her, like he didn’t want to ask but he had to. “Do I - do I make you feel at all the same kind of...”</p><p>He looked like a little boy. He looked like their little boys, lost, forlorn, hopeful all the same. Shy. Her heart twisted for him and she snaked her arm around his neck and brought them together again, brushing a kiss against his cheek like he’d done to her earlier.</p><p>“Maybe not the king of the whole world, Castle,” she said softly, tightening her arm when he tried to move. “But the queen of yours. And I like your world better.”</p><p>-----</p><p>"We could do breakfast in bed," he offered. And he knew he was hovering a little bit and that she hated it. So he backed up a step and nearly knocked over Wyatt. He had to snag the kid really fast to keep him from toppling over, snatching the boy up into his arms, pretending like he'd meant to all along.</p><p>Kate sat on the edge of the bed, her feet on the floor, but she was giving him a knowing look.You don't fool me. </p><p>"Mommy," James whined, nudging his face between her knees. Kate leaned over and petted down his hair, but then she picked him up.</p><p>Just plucked him straight up from the floor even in that awkward position and no leverage but her own abdominal muscles, and fuck-</p><p>"That's hot."</p><p>Kate startled, so badly that she had to put out a hand to the headboard to catch herself, caught in the act of rising with James. "What?"</p><p>"I just... you're really fucking strong. Only a year of training?"</p><p>Her mouth dropped open.</p><p>Castle flushed. "I - no. Stupid. That's not okay. I'm sorry. It's not-"</p><p>"A year," she said into his flustered horror. "Little over, I think."</p><p>She thought. She didn't know. Because things like marking down the days, a calendar, not given to her, not allowed.</p><p>"Fuck," he croaked. He gripped Wyatt too hard and made the kid squirm against his chest, but he stared at Kate and tried to erase the picture that put in his head.</p><p>"Can we go back to you being turned on and maybe proud of me?" she muttered. "I liked that better than pity."</p><p>"Not pity," he grumbled. But he reached out and snagged James by the ankle, tugging a little to keep Kate standing there with him. Important stuff. "Not ever pity. Mostly guilt for not doing something sooner. And horror that it was happening to you - you of all people - when..."</p><p>"You didn't know," she said. Her voice was quiet but it was strong. "Both. Didn't know it was being done, and you didn't know me."</p><p>"But I do now," he sighed. He did now, and it was never going to be okay. How could he have had that flash of purely selfish lust and-</p><p>"If you can't see past it, Castle, how the hell am I supposed to?"</p><p>He swallowed and bobbed his head, shame washing down his throat. "Right. I - you're right. Ido see past it, and I think that's what scares the shit out of me. That it's so easy to look right past the horror and trauma and the fucking terrible things, and just see this woman I... I want really badly to stay with me."</p><p>For a moment she didn't say anything, and he wasn't sure there really was anything to say to his idiocy. But she leaned over and touched James's feet to the floor, ducking his head to nudge him away. And then she straightened up and reached for Wyatt, took the boy right out of his arms (was she showing off what she could do? how strong she was, how healed, how easy it was for her to carry these boys) and she put Wyatt on his feet too.</p><p>"Castle," she murmured. She was stepping into him, fingers catching around his wrists. Her thumbs began to slide around his pulse points, an erotic breath of her touch. Her body came closer, the heat of her chasing after him. "Castle, put the boys upstairs. You and I need breakfast in bed."</p><p>"What?" His voice cracked. His heart was wild, not letting him think.</p><p>She touched her lips to his throat and he whined, reflex, completely involuntary. "Castle, I want to touch you. I want - really badly - for you to stay with me."</p><p>"Oh, fuck."</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate paced the bedroom, her face too hot, while Castle corralled the kids upstairs. She was in panties and t-shirt and she didn’t know if she should just strip everything off and climb back into bed, or what.</p><p>Or what.</p><p>She really had no idea what to expect. She hadn’t quite realized just how much she didn’t know, and not because no one had given her that conversation - oh, yes, her mother had been informative and warning, but Maddie had been explicit. It wasn’t that at all. It was Castle.</p><p>What the hell was she supposed to do with a man who was James Bond? She’d never measure up, but damn she wanted to. She really wanted to.</p><p>She wanted to be better than anyone he’d ever had. She wanted-</p><p>“Hey, all set. I poured out cheerios.”</p><p>She turned and saw Castle taking the stone steps two at a time, hurrying down. She realized she was wringing her hands and dropped them, her heart in her throat as he came to her.</p><p>Castle was completely at ease, like they’d been doing this forever. He caught up to her, cupping her elbows and leaned in for a swift kiss. Like a greeting. “They’re fine. Not even fazed. They saw you, they’re willing to keep themselves busy.”</p><p>“They told you that, huh?”</p><p>He grinned and kissed her again, little rougher, taking from her mouth as he drew his arms around her. She loosened up, touching her hands to his waist, felt herself falling away from all those uncertainties. </p><p>“They told me that,” he murmured against her lips. “They told me to get back downstairs and show Mom a good time.”</p><p>She laughed, clutching at his shirt. “They did not.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he chuckled, another kiss lightly under her cheek. “James might have looked at me disapprovingly.”</p><p>“He’s like that,” she murmured, tilting her head into the string of his kiss. “But Wyatt might high-five you in a few years.”</p><p>Castle rumbled, his laughter caught like a burr in his chest, vibrating between them. She pushed up on her toes to explore him a little, wrapping her hand at the back of his head to angle him into her.</p><p>“There we go,” he hummed, praising her.</p><p>She nipped the corner of his mouth with her teeth, soothed with her tongue, realized his hands were moving under her shirt. His hands. Wide and warm, the heat of him blazing a trail up her spine. </p><p>“Mm, no bra,” he husked, dragging his mouth back to her ear. She shivered and couldn’t even laugh, caught in the spell his fingers weaved on her skin, drawing her shirt up and over her head. Cool air peaked her nipples, but his hands came back to her and cupped her breasts.</p><p>“Castle,” she sighed, eyes falling shut.</p><p>His thumbs brushed in and caught her nipples, his hands squeezed until she cried out and clutched his hips. </p><p>“Back to bed, Kate,” he gruffed.</p><p>She swallowed and nodded, but she surged up into him instead, unable to walk away, threading her arms around his neck. He groaned as his mouth crashed into hers, and their kiss was violent, painful in its need.</p><p>She pressed her body against his, harder, tighter, and she felt his response, the ridge of his cock against her belly. Just that pressure, just knowing he wanted her made her body ignite.</p><p>Castle growled, gripped her ass with a squeeze. “No good. Jump.”</p><p>“What?” she gasped.</p><p>“Not doing this against the damn wall. Jump, Kate.”</p><p>Jum-</p><p>She laughed and tightened her arms at his neck, took a preparatory bounce on her toes, and then she jumped him.</p><p>Castle flashed her a grin and caught her easily, his arms under her ass, and all it took was one fast stride across the room. And then she was being tossed to the bed.</p><p>Except that her arms and legs were tangled around him and Castle came down on top of her, both of them breathless, Kate laughing as he grumbled. He buried his mouth into her chest and she gasped, arching as his tongue teased around her nipple.</p><p>“Oh, God,” she moaned. She was writhing; she couldn’t control it. His mouth was insistent, his mouth was a flame burning straight to her guts. “Castle, oh. Oh, God.”</p><p>His hummed response only made her tighten, her sex contracting like a mouth, hungry. She needed more than this; she needed all of it, no more holding back, denying. He rubbed his bristling jaw against her belly and nudged his nose at the waistband of her panties.</p><p>“Castle, please,” she groaned. Her leg was twined around his back, but he was moving down, down. She clutched his shirt - he wasn’t even naked - a fist in his hair. “What are you-”</p><p>“I want to taste you, everything. I want everything I’ve been holding back from.”</p><p>She took a shaky breath and tried to release him, to let him. “No one ever-”</p><p>“Good.” His teeth scraped her skin as he bit her panties and tugged them down, oh God, oh God. “All mine.”</p><p>She cried out, bucking hard at the feel of him between her legs. She kicked a foot and her panties were gone, and before she could ask what now, now, now he was touching his mouth to her sex.</p><p>“Oh,” she gasped.</p><p>His tongue touched her. She mewled, hands scrabbling at the back of his shirt, fisting his hair. His hands came to her knees and held her open, open to him, and his kiss was slow and dirty and wet.</p><p>“Shi-it,” she stuttered. Her whole body arched, moving in waves, up and up. He was unceasing. His mouth was - such an erotic thrust of his tongue, and his teeth scraping her clit. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”</p><p>His nose against her. His mouth against her. The wash of his breath, his hands holding her open, holding her down, her body in a tight coil against him.</p><p>His fingers went inside her.</p><p>“Castle.”</p><p>His fingers curled, withdrew slowly, the burn of his tongue, the seal of his mouth, and then he thrust.</p><p>She came apart, completely unraveled.</p><p>-----</p><p>She was gorgeous.</p><p>Such natural, wild response to him, and even as her orgasm fluttered and shivered through her like a frightened bird trying to settle, he kissed her red, raw clit and hummed his appreciation against it. </p><p>Kate bowed, like he'd broken something. Her knees jerked in against his ears, her body came upright, curling around his mouth with the ferocity of a second, unlooked-for orgasm. She was gasping breaths, fingers twisting his ears, clamped around him.</p><p>He took his cue, smugly proud of himself - he'd had an idea that all their denial play would lead to something like that, back-to-back - but that had been better than he'd imagined.</p><p>"Castle," she husked.</p><p>His name sounded erotic out of her twice-come mouth. He lifted his head and found her lips, stroked his tongue softly at the open seam of her breathless whimper. She moved, slow and liquid under him, as he crawled back up, pressing her open again as he did.</p><p>No one ever, huh? No fucking kidding that no one ever. He stroked his fingers possessively through her soaking sex, only to have Kate cry out and clutch him, shuddering hard - close already.</p><p>"God," she groaned. Her body shivered under him once more, but her hands were working at his boxers, fumbling with the waistband. "Why do you have clothes on, you bastard?"</p><p>He laughed and she only moaned, pressing herself up against him. Her legs were thrown open so wide, her heels digging into the backs of his knees, her body rocking upward, again and again, thrusting artlessly. </p><p>She had no moves. She was all moves, and she was one hot, burning hand inside his boxers.</p><p>"Fuck!" His body fell down on top of hers with the intensity of her grip. "Fuck, Kate. Kate. Shit. I won't - fuck - won't make it if you don't stop."</p><p>"You'll be just fine. You come back fast," she breathed into his ear. Her fingers stroked roughly, tugging, scraping a nail at his head. He was growling obscenities into her hair, mindlessly humping into her fist, and she was right, right, he came back so damn fast with her, why the fuck was it so easy when everything else was never-</p><p>"I want to do to you what you just did to me," she intoned. Her voice was low and dangerous in his ear, thrilling, and his hips thrust with every other syllable, his rhythm to her poetry.</p><p>Oh, fuck, he was getting sappy. Sentimental. He wanted to fuck her clever, seeking hand, he wanted to fuck that mouth that spoke such hot, intimate, casual sex in his ear. He wanted to rut inside her until all trace of anything else ever had been erased by the pressure and pull and insistence of his love for her.</p><p>"I want inside you," he groaned, still unable to stop thrusting his hips. </p><p>Kate fingered his balls, the flex of her arm between them so damn sensuous. "Inside me," she echoed softly. Her lips caressed while her hand torqued, her mouth breathed lightly while her grip was crushing him.</p><p>"Please," he groaned. "Need you." He growled and bowed his head to her collarbone, trying to gulp enough air to give him back control. "Kate, if you don't - stop - I'm gonna - fuck - I'm gonna come all over your hand."</p><p>"So come."</p><p>"Fuck." He moaned and clutched her hip, the back of her neck, working his hips into her hand. "I thought - thought we'd - fuck."</p><p>She hummed in his ear, a laugh that danced along his nerve endings and curled his balls. "For a man who wants inside me so badly, you're sure settling for-"</p><p>"Damn it, you touch me and I lose all fucking control, woman." He bit her collarbone and licked roughly at the spot, suckled until she gasped. He rubbed his cheeks against her breasts just to get her back to the place where she was as raw and aching as he was. "This isn't how it's supposed to go, Kate."</p><p>"Then show me how," she murmured. There was a hot and vital innocence in her voice. "Show me everything we should be doing."</p><p>"Oh, hell," he groaned. His cock was so damn hard he was losing all rational argument, losing the whole thread. Show me how-</p><p>His head snapped up, his hips thrusting to pin her flat to the mattress. "Show you how?"</p><p>Her cheeks flushed pink, her teeth biting her lip. Her fingers wriggled where he'd trapped her. "I think I got this part down pretty well."</p><p>He felt the darkness of his arousal gathering close around his heart. "Fuck, Beckett, you are a master at this part." But she was entirely too much in control. He angled his thigh between her legs and found her heat, rocked his body down into that clutching wetness.</p><p>Kate moaned, her eyelids drooping so that some of that connection was lost. Her hand still struggled to grip and stroke him, but now he had two fingers pressing inside her and she was wild with it again.</p><p>"Oh, please," she groaned, arching against him. He had trouble keeping hold of her, she was all over him, under him. Her body was so hot and tight, so strong, and he rubbed the inside of her sex, the wet, swollen places were her muscles clenched for him, contracting for him.</p><p>"Yeah, baby, feel good?"</p><p>"So - so good," she stuttered. Her fingers worked him, he worked her, and she was mewling now, little noises, constant sex out of her mouth.</p><p>"Imagine me inside you, how I'll press you open-"</p><p>"Oh, God," she whined. But her fingers seemed to work independent of her mindless writhing, and she was still gripping him, rhythm and fury and need, so that he was going to come and ruin it, he was going to burst across her stomach and cunt and thighs - so damn close but so damn far.</p><p>"How I'll move inside you," he growled, gritting his teeth through the words just to hang on. "How you'll feel with me, how we'll feel together."</p><p>"Oh, yes," she whispered. Her fingers fluttered around his cock like he imagined her body would. "I never... I've never had... so good."</p><p>He found the spot inside her the moment her confession tumbled out of her wide open mouth, and then she was wide-eyed and seized by pleasure, her climax crashing down on both of them, his fingers working in rough thrusts as she rode his hand.</p><p>In the middle of watching her fall apart for him again, he was caught by the balls, the claw and clutch of her hand around him, and he groaned and spilled hotly between their bodies, his orgasm no longer able to be denied.</p><p>In the drowse and haze of that deep and grim satisfaction, his fingers still curled protectively, invasively around her and her hand slick with his seed, her body painted by the need she'd forced out of him, he realized.</p><p>His heart stopped.</p><p>Kate hummed something and curled into him, pushing them to their sides as her leg slid over his thigh. She was playing with his cock, and his traitorous body was responding to her, hardening, thickening, eager for that promised land.</p><p>Virgin. Promised. Land.</p><p>"Kate," he husked, drawing his hand up and over her hip, slicking her juices along her back until he caught her by the nape. "Kate, honey, look at me."</p><p>Her eyes met his in a lazy and content kind of way, a blissed and melted joy behind them, and he very softly kissed her mouth.</p><p>"Kate," he whispered, lingering. "You've never... had someone?" He felt his heart pounding against her body, or her heart thundering a beat at his ribs, something. "Never had someone inside you, never... you're...."</p><p>She froze.</p><p>"No," she growled finally. "What I am - you couldn't call a damn virgin."</p><p>Virgin, untouched, innocent - none of those seemed right. Because the horrifying truth was that she had been violated, she'd had someone inside her, she'd given birth to two boys and been probed and poked and studied and violated again.</p><p>"Baby," he murmured, cupping her face, kissing her again softly. "What you are is your own, and if this is new, if this is new, oh, God, Kate, you have to tell me so I can do this right."</p><p>Her teeth caught his ear. "I thought-" She licked erotically at that spot at his jaw. "I thought you said I was yours."</p><p>He groaned and clutched her, gripping harder at her nape because this was so damn important. "Tell me."</p><p>Her mouth opened, her nose slid against his, insinuating things even as her fingers stroked and loved his cock. "It's new. It's - all new."</p><p>"All?" he croaked.</p><p>"No one ever - I never let them do anything but what I wanted to do. I stay in control." Her chin came up fiercely. "It's my choice, wether they come or not. Whether anything happens, and anything I give is such a gift."</p><p>Oh, fuck.</p><p>She narrowed her eyes at him. "I want this. Just get it over with so we can enjoy all that fucking hot shit you talked about, Castle. Come on."</p><p>"Oh, no. No." He gripped her harder, rolled to his back. "No. I'm not giving you a quickie before breakfast. I'm not - no. We're doing this right."</p><p>"There's nothing wrong," she cried out.</p><p>He caught her wrist before she could slap at him, brought her hand to his lips for a kiss before tucking her in against him. "Nothing wrong at all. I made you come three times. It's definitely not being done wrong. But you are special. Special to me, Kate. And I want you to remember this, want you to feel how special it is-"</p><p>"You're such a girl," she huffed.</p><p>He laughed and angled his thigh between her legs, pressed up until she gave a little involuntary gasp, a thrust of her hips. "So let me be a damn girl about it. I want to make you crazy with wanting me, and then I want to fuck you very very slowly, so that you feel every inch inside you, so that you will never forget that moment, that first time - that last first time - you will ever ever have."</p><p>-----</p><p>"You're very determined to ruin this," she muttered. Kate could still feel the way his cock thickened in her hand, belying his oh let's stop for now and her own insinuation that he was sucking all the sexy out of the moment.</p><p>"I determined not to ruin it," he murmured back to her. Caressing her face, her throat, dragging his fingertips down her breast and around her nipple. "Very determined to knock your socks off."</p><p>"They're already off," she said, digging her toes into his calf, urging her hips into him on a weak thrust. "Goal accomplished. Can't we just do this?"</p><p>His fingers danced at her ribs, and her traitorous lashes fluttered in response to that same flutter that he set off in her womb. Where his sons grew, where she ached to have him back, have him true, have him for all the times she hadn't and for all the ways even that had been taken without her say.</p><p>"Oh, love," he sighed. His lips dusted a kiss to her throat that made her eyes burn. "The things we're going to do. You have no idea. Honestly, I don't think I have any idea either, and doesn't the anticipation make everything ache?"</p><p>She growled at the accuracy of it, capitulating despite herself to the long and protracted wait. "I won't be able to think about anything else," she complained.</p><p>His lips rose from her chest, his eyes that flame blue. "Exactly."</p><p>She took a long swallow of air, staring back at him and the nakedness on his face. "Still denying me."</p><p>"Us," he murmured. His fingers circled her knee where she had her thigh over his hip. Circled and teased. "Because when we start taking what we want, sweetheart, five minutes before breakfast won't be enough."</p><p>"You're smug," she muttered. And then she twitched her hand around the heaviness still growing in his cock. "Smug and cocky."</p><p>"Yes,"  he grinned. "And for good reason, wouldn't you say?"</p><p>She narrowed her eyes, squeezed him just enough, just until his grin faltered. "I wouldn't know, Castle. I've never had the pleasure."</p><p>He laughed, apparently caught by surprise, and his laughter came for her with a swift, open kiss against her mouth. The rumble of his mirth fell inside her as his tongue played, and shehated the way her body struggled into his for more. Hated it.</p><p>Loved it. Craved it. God, she needed him to make good on his promises, needed something pressing her open down there, that exact feeling of creation and birth but in the opposite direction, into her, into her, push inside-</p><p>"Just my fingers," he murmured, his mouth hot down her body, her rolling, uncontrollable body. "Let's see if you can take three."</p><p>She cried out as his tongue circled her navel, gripped an ear, his hair blindingly soft at her knuckles while his jaw was abrasive at her heel. His scruff dragged over her inside thigh and his lips touched those fleshy lips, the place where everything was magic, and he licked.</p><p>"Oh, God," she whined. "Please, please, you have to."</p><p>A suckle of her sex was her answer, and her hips rode up, trembling on the violent arc of her body. He gripped her thighs and bore her back down, and every kiss and stroke of his mouth against her was like a whip crack along her nerves.</p><p>Unbearable. Brutal. Tickling. She was going to come and his fingers were nowhere near her.</p><p>"Castle," she cried out. "Harder. Please, I need you-"</p><p>"I love you," he growled against her cunt.</p><p>A fist seized her, shaking, and threw her back to the mattress. The orgasm had come and gone with a fierceness that made her taste blood in her mouth - she'd bit her tongue - but now his fingers were scissors inside her, stretching her open, widening the clamped mouth of her sex.</p><p>"Oh, God," she whispered, riding the tremor of her need. "I..."</p><p>His thumb made a slow circle of her clit, that angry raw place that gushed fluid from her and made everything so slick and hot. He kissed her thighs as her muscles flexed - moved his fingers inside her.</p><p>She cried out, colors flaring at the edges of her vision like phosphenes. He growled against her and crawled up, bearing her down with his body, his fingers still moving inside her. He gave her a rhythm, a hard and deep movement inside her, and his mouth came to hers and sealed off her sounds.</p><p>The dark inside of his mouth - a tang and cream - her own weeping sex a slide of his tongue against her own and she found his rhythm, met his drive with the movement of her hips, tasting herself, tasting them, tasting what he wanted to give her.</p><p>Her orgasm started in her belly, drawing fire into a tight and contracted and urgent need before nova-flaring through her whole body, bright white and blinding, burning her down to nothing.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle stroked light fingers at her stomach as Kate sank back to the mattress. Sweat dappled his fingertips, but he didn't have long before her hand gripped his like a vise.</p><p>Sensation overload.</p><p>He pressed his body carefully against her side, bearing her down and giving her some of his weight to counterbalance the extreme pleasure that had made her so exposed. Kate's hand released his only to curl at his bicep and drag him closer, and he shifted again, letting himself fall into her.</p><p>Kate released a stuttering breath and slid her arm around his torso, her grip still fierce. He wasn't sure how much of her was really here, not with the way her fingers dug into his shoulder and her hips still rocked a little. She was coming down in stages, or still coming, and the aftershocks burst out into little whimpers in his ear.</p><p>It was erotic and gorgeous, but it also reaffirmed his convictions. He was going to do this right, going to seduce her with romance, make it everything it ought to be, everything that had been taken. Divine conception it was not, but he could still feel her very real innocence in all of this, the ways in which her body responded without censure or style, the freedom of having no experience.</p><p>Kate's fingers stroked his spine and up to his nape, smoothed into his hair. Her heart beat fast under her skin, the barrier between them so close to nothing that he felt it like his own.</p><p>She shivered.</p><p>He wondered what came next. What ought to come next as opposed to what he himself decided should be next. He was used to giving orders and being in charge, used to directing the traffic of his multiple lives, but not once had he patiently waited for Kate to come up with her own ideas about this.</p><p>Well, when her ideas included being left on the side of the road, no fucking wonder. But for this?</p><p>Kate trailed her touch down his back and circled low, skirting the top of his ass. He wanted her to ask - no, he wanted her to do whatever it was she wanted to do.</p><p>"Shower?" she murmured. "Take care of you."</p><p>His heart jolted. "Yeah. Yes." She didn't mean it like that. She meant his erection, not his need. "Shower."</p><p>Kate hummed and shifted her knee down, sliding sensuously at his side, and he lifted his weight from her. Glanced down. She was looking at him with that tenderness that had been in her fingers' touch.</p><p>He wanted to blurt it out again, but he didn't want the words to lose their power, didn't want her to think he said it too easily. So instead he cupped her face in a hand and skimmed his thumb under her eye and then kissed her.</p><p>She melted into him, and he carefully raised her from the bed, and she came with him, fingers tangling as they moved as one for the bathroom.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle watched her in the bathroom mirror as the anxiety filled up all the blank spaces behind her eyes, even as the steam rose between them.</p><p>She had pushed him out to go to the bathroom, wash her hands and face, and he'd seen the awareness in her look when she'd come to the door to let him back in. He'd gone to the bathroom in front of her, wondering what she might do, but she had spent it with her back to him, messing with the shower features.</p><p>"Kate," he roughed, wanting to draw her away from wherever she was. "Undress me."</p><p>Her eyes flashed, a quick-burning fire that nevertheless burned her clear. The arousal and the ease were back, and she slid closer, her hands unerringly on his pants.</p><p>Castle kept himself still, only rested his own hands on her hips, waiting on her to lead them. She had shucked her t-shirt, though the panties remained, but he didn't think she had a very clear sense of her own body, of what it meant to him to see her standing naked. She knew how to use - she knew her body like a tool - but not the beauty.</p><p>More than just function.</p><p>And he wanted her to see it in him, see more than the function of sex to relieve stress and entertain. More than a good feeling brought on by jangling nerve endings.</p><p>He wanted her in this with him.</p><p>"Tilt your hips," she murmured.</p><p>His cock hardened at just the impression of a command from her, and he did as she asked, tilting the cradle of his pelvis back so she could push his pants down. She stepped in closer and palmed his ass as she did it, a fleeting and wry smile up at him as if she was pleased with herself. He danced his hands up to her elbows, her shoulders, tried not to lead her.</p><p>"You're strong," she sighed softly. Her lips turned in against his jaw and he shivered, felt his pants drop to his ankles. "Step out, Rick."</p><p>He followed her orders, faintly astonished by the arousal that flooded through him every time she told him what to do. Helped that her hands skated his ass and the backs of his thighs, helped that the heat of her groin was brushing his with these inadvertent touches. Helped that he could smell the musk of her as the shower steamed up the room.</p><p>"Carefully or fast?" she said. She had her fingers in the waistband of his boxer briefs, running just under the elastic, back and forth, erotic, hypnotic. He was having a hard time filling his lungs deep enough for the things she was doing to him. "Cas-stle." A tease of her lips in his ear. "Slow or fast, sweetheart?"</p><p>"S-slow," he got out, hating himself for it even as he said it.</p><p>"Mm, you like to torture yourself with it."</p><p>"Like when you do it," he said gruffly. Her smile pressed into his cheek, her particular nudge of love, but her fingers in the waistband went slowly, peeling the elastic down like he was some overripe fruit that might burst and cream her hands.</p><p>He might.</p><p>Oh, hell.</p><p>He really might. He had to grit his teeth and fist his hands at her shoulders to keep from grabbing her by the back of the neck and pushing her down to him. The urge to take was strong, but the elusive curl of arousal that threaded through his guts whenever she teased, whenever she took him in hand - that was so much greater.</p><p>"Hm, I think I'll leave these just like this and work on your shirt instead," she smiled. Lilithian, her intent clear in her eyes. Her fingers traced the outline of his cock under the restriction of the elastic now banding around him midway down, and he couldn't suppress the curse that barked from his throat.</p><p>Her smile was deeper now, her eyes textured with colors and shapes he'd never seen before. She teased her fingers under the hem of his black shirt and pressed her palms to his chest, nails scratching as she clawed up.</p><p>"Fuck," he shouted, hips punching into hers. "Fuck. Kate. Fuck."</p><p>"You said no, baby."</p><p>He growled, dragging his eyes open to stare down at her. Threatening entirely fell apart, and she hummed and leaned in, pressing herself to him and rubbing her lips against his. </p><p>“You said no fucking,” she breathed.</p><p>“Are you punishing me?” he croaked.</p><p>“Maybe.”</p><p>“I really like it.”</p><p>She laughed, suddenly, and tugged on his shirt, using the moment to make him work it off his head. When his vision cleared, she was smiling at him, her bare breasts warm against his chest, the points of her nipples cool.</p><p>He dipped his hands into her panties and cupped her ass. Kate squeaked and came up on her toes, and he grinned down at her.</p><p>“Boxers,” she said, gathering herself again. </p><p>He could see the effort it took now for her to keep her control; it was enticing, all that power she wielded over him, power she took. </p><p>“Boxers, Castle,” she said, eyebrow lifting. She snapped the elastic of his waistband and he jumped.</p><p>“Sexy when you order me around,” he said.</p><p>She grinned and rolled the elastic down, once more, a painful restriction against his cock. Her fingers brushed him as she went, and he sucked in a tight breath, some of his own control slipping again.</p><p>“Sexy when you come without meaning to,” she murmured, her hand closing around him.</p><p>“Whoa, fuck,” he hissed. “Delicate, baby, gentle. I’m gonna do that right here in my shorts and it’d be a mess to clean up.”</p><p>“Come on then. I wanted you in my mouth for that.”</p><p>“Fuck, Beckett, the things you say.”</p><p>She was tugging his boxers down now, the briefs peeled down his legs faster, hurrying. She scratched his thigh on her way, bent down before him to kiss the welt on his skin. “I like what it does to you.”</p><p>He groaned, lids half-mast as he watched her stand up again. </p><p>“Step out, love,” she murmured.</p><p>He obeyed, catching a toe in the material to kick them free. She rubbed her hands at his back and got a handful of his ass, squeezing. He swayed, clutched her waist to stay on his feet.</p><p>“Come on. Shower,” she said.</p><p>“Your panties-”</p><p>“I’ll take care of everything. You just do what I say.”</p><p>“Yes, ma’am,” he breathed, so fucking turned on that his cock bobbed in the warm air. So steamed up in the bathroom it was like a wet mouth, and he grew even more rigid just thinking it. </p><p>She turned him towards the door, nudging him to step over the lip and into the shower stall. He watched her undress through the glass, just that last slip of silk down her hips. When she walked into the water, he caught her by the waist and pulled her into him.</p><p>“Your legs are beautiful,” he murmured into her hair, cupping her skull in his hands. “Did you know that? Knock me out. So long, perfectly shaped. Strong. All I can think about is having your legs around my waist and my cock buried inside you.”</p><p>She shivered, droplets flying from her hair, her skin. “Tonight.”</p><p>“Tonight,” he husked.</p><p>Her fingers traced against his ass and came between them. “This morning is for quickies, didn’t you say?”</p><p>“I...” He couldn’t breathe, the feel of her hand on him was driving out even baser functioning like noise and air.</p><p>“Get good and hard for me, Castle.” She kissed his open mouth, licked lewdly at his bottom lip. “I want you to come down my throat.”</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Give me a minute,” she murmured. “Sit here. Wait for me, love.”</p><p>She pushed him to sit on the bench, fully intending to make him so wild with it that he’d need the support, but also wanting to shower first. He kept lifting his hands to trace over her skin, mindless designs, his eyes tracking her movements. Like he just couldn’t help himself. </p><p>She ran shampoo through her hair, sudsing up quickly, flipping the length of it on top of her head before rinsing it clean. Castle watched, his knees spread wide, that anticipation coiled in him like tension, his hands twitching for her.</p><p>She turned and went for conditioner, felt the stroke of Castle’s foot along her calf as she stepped away. She glanced at him over her shoulder and pushed her fingers through her hair, soaking it with conditioner to the ends, trying to be fast. She tilted her head under the rain shower, closing her eyes to feel the heat of the water on her scalp.</p><p>And, of course, his hands on her hips, tugging a little as if to say hurry up. She peeked at him from under her lashes and saw how he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, caressing her skin with his thumbs. A touch of a kiss to the arch of her thigh where it rose to her pelvis.</p><p>She rinsed the conditioner and squeezed water out of the ends, wiped water out of her face, and then hooked his wrists and stepped into the bench. Castle hummed and pressed his mouth against her navel, tonguing the dip so that she sighed and scraped her fingers through his hair.</p><p>She wanted to sink down on his cock and ride him, feel exactly how wide and thick and throbbing for her he was, feel him deep inside her. She wanted it so badly, but there was something delicious about knowing it would be soon. So soon.</p><p>Tonight.</p><p>She brought her hands under his jaw and tugged his head up, keeping him away from her sex. The soap had felt raw between her legs, tantalizing, and the tease was more than enough. Felt so good, like a tickle, a constant awareness of how he felt, how she felt, and she wanted to give that back to him. </p><p>Make him as aware and dangerous with all this want.</p><p>Castle fingered the backs of her thighs, but she slowly sank to her knees before him. The water beat against her back, ran down over her collarbone as she lightly scratched her fingers over the tops of his legs.</p><p>“Aren’t you gorgeous.”</p><p>She caught his hand as he cupped her face, kissed his palm only to lay it down on his knee, trapping him there. “Be good, Castle.”</p><p>“Not sure I can, baby.”</p><p>Kate rubbed her palms over his thighs and leaned in, teasing him with her breasts against the inside of his knees. His fingers twitched but he didn’t touch, and she skimmed her hands up to the nest of his groin.</p><p>His hair was kinky but soft, matted down with the shower, his cock already impressive for her. She kissed the head, smiled at the groan she got in response, and she held his cock in the palm of her hand.</p><p>“Ah, Kate, Kate,” he sighed, and now his hands wrapped around her biceps. She didn’t mind; she liked it, actually. She liked that he forgot himself and did what he wanted, wanting her.</p><p>She rubbed her thumb along the side of his cock, the skin moving back and forth over the head. His noises were rich, free, rumbling in his chest as she stroked lightly at his cock. He seemed to like the tease as much as she did, so she went slowly, exploring him.</p><p>“Oh,” he murmured, fingers rippling and squeezing at her biceps. “Oh, baby.”</p><p>Kate licked the water beading on his cock, suckled at it softly. His hips squirmed and his thigh flexed under her forearms. She opened her mouth and breathed cooly over his wet cock, loving the way he groaned, the way his hips chased the sensation.</p><p>She caressed his cock with both hands now, pulling it towards her as if she could make him longer just by the tug. He did seem to thicken, though, cock pulsing in her hands. She kissed the base of him, his hair wet against her nose, and she could smell how much he wanted her.</p><p>She licked a long stripe down his cock and he groaned. </p><p>“You taste like the ocean,” she murmured. And then she touched her tongue to the head of his cock and teased his slit, let her teeth nudge him.</p><p>“Oh fuck,” he barked. “Kate. Shit. Kate, I’m close.”</p><p>“Already?” </p><p>“Not funny,” he grit out.</p><p>She was only laughing a little bit, but she was seriously impressed with her own skill. That she could push him to the edge so fast, so suddenly - and all with a few swipes of her tongue.</p><p>“Kate, please. Please, baby.”</p><p>She touched her lips to his head and parted her lips, slowly let him breach her mouth. He groaned and his head fell back, hands gripping her as if to tug her onto him. His tip nudged the roof of her mouth and she angled her descent, drawing him deeper, pressing up with her tongue as she did.</p><p>“Whoa, fuck, fuck, fuck.” His hips bucked and she choked, and he whined and seemed to be trying to apologize. But the words wouldn’t come out of him - just those grunts.</p><p>Kate sucked on the length of him and withdrew, making sure to keep up the pressure with her tongue. He was incoherent now, her name like a curse, his hands gripping her as if to make sure she wouldn’t get away.</p><p>Kate began a slow and purposeful rhythm, sliding as much of his cock as she could into her mouth before lifting up and teasing the head of him. She loved the sounds he made, loved how his body seemed to be barely in his control, loved even more how his fingers gripped tighter and harder.</p><p>Now with his cock nice and slick for her, Kate swirled her tongue at his head and then sank down - all the way.</p><p>“Kate.”</p><p>She swallowed against the invasion of his cock, swallowing hard to keep him there, and then she cupped his balls in her hand.</p><p>“Oh, God.” His hips began to thrust into her, little rocking movements that nevertheless pushed his cock down her throat. She consciously relaxed, kept herself there, and sucked on his cock as she rolled his balls in her hand.</p><p>Castle orgasmed with a shout, the salt of his come bursting down her throat and washing her insides with the heat of him.</p><p>She felt filled up. Full. So... replete with the wonder of all of it that she laid her cheek against his inside thigh and petted lightly at his balls, his cock, petting until his arms wrapped around her neck and held her against him.</p><p>So filled by him.</p><p>-----</p><p>He could hardly breathe straight, crooked gasps and his lungs creaking. He clutched at her, knew he wasn’t quite here yet, wasn’t able to help it. His fingers were tangled in her hair. She was stroking his balls with her thumb, around and around. Made it worse. Made it so hard to focus.</p><p>“Kate,” he garbled. He dragged his arm across her upper back, hooked under her arm. She came up into his lap at his insistence, and then it was easier, not easy no, but easier, holding her tight to his chest and sucking down deeper breaths.</p><p>She nuzzled down into him, her ass digging into his thigh and her legs thrown over his. Her feet were on the bench and her knees bumped his arm, but he concentrated on not bruising her anymore.</p><p>“You feel good?” she murmured over the shower. He nodded dumbly and buried his face into her hair, another breath that gave him a little more stability.</p><p>“You?” he got out.</p><p>“I’m good, love.” Her lips traced his ear. “You’re kinda in and out?”</p><p>“Trying,” he said shortly, clearing his throat when his voice cracked.</p><p>“It’s okay,” she hummed. Her hand trailed up his chest and touched his throat, caressed. It made him shudder. “You’re okay. You really liked that.”</p><p>“Just really like you,” he husked.</p><p>She hummed again, these noises she made, this purr in her throat that echoed up in her mouth and made him want to cup his hands for it, overflowing. </p><p>Her fingers stroked at his nape, through his wet hair. “When you can stand, we should probably get the boys.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Mm, not yet?” she said softly. She was laughing a little; he could feel it. But her fingers stroked his neck. “That’s okay. We’ll just stay right here.”</p><p>He grunted his assent and waited for the feeling to return to his legs, the blood to begin pumping somewhere other than his thick cock. He had the strange, panicky feeling that if Kate squirmed just the wrong way, his erection would pop back up again, just that fast.</p><p>No. He couldn’t. She needed food. And for him to not maul her. She needed the chance to have a normal day and then-</p><p>Oh, fuck. How was he going to wait all day to have her?</p><p>He turned his head into her and kissed her neck, fumbling at it, and then finally found his way to her lips, kissing the corner of her mouth to keep himself chaste. As chaste as he could be around her.</p><p>She cradled his head in her hand and kissed him back, not letting him go until her tongue had stroked inside and danced his dizzily. When she broke from him, she lightly patted his cheek and then stood. She held out her hands for him to take, fingers wriggling in invitation.</p><p>So he did, and found himself dragging her back down instead of her helping him up.</p><p>She laughed and stumbled back down to him, a hand catching on his shoulder, her hair swinging wet and loose against his cheek. She pushed away from him, one of their hands still clasped, and tugged until he managed to struggle to his feet.</p><p>“You still a little out of it?” she said, smiling up at him.</p><p>“Yeah, sorry. Just-”</p><p>“Don’t be sorry, Castle. Not for this.” Her lips turned down, instantly sober. “I don’t think I could take it if you thought you had to - gentle for me. Or be not - not you. I don’t want that. I like this, what we do, I like us. I like you a little stunned by me.”</p><p>He grinned back at her, wolfish and feeling both predatory and prey, a strange feeling. “I like the way you stun me, baby. I definitely don’t intend to stop what we do.”</p><p>She ducked her head but she came into his side, knocking her cheek into his chin in that love tap she had. He was still grinning, felt his face splitting wide with the feel of her naked, wet body against his and her careful intentions.</p><p>“Come on,” she muttered. “Get moving, Castle. Before my fingers raisin.”</p><p>Even as she was moving away from him, he caught her by the nape of her neck and dragged her back, moving in for a kiss.</p><p>He made it thorough enough to drag a moan out of her mouth, and then he let her go. Satisfied and yet completely not done at all. Never gonna be done with her.</p><p>She just stared up at him, looking a little stunned herself.</p><p>“Move your ass, Beckett.”</p><p>-----</p><p>The closet was surprisingly full. She had clothes hanging from the hangars, folded on the shelves. She had jackets, jeans, a skirt. She had panties, bras - lace. She had so much. </p><p>So much.</p><p>Castle made a noise from the doorway.</p><p>“Here,” she said, tossing clean boxers at his face. He huffed as he caught them, his instincts so sharp that he’d snatched them out of the air an instant before he even seemed to noticed what she’d done.</p><p>Kate bit her bottom lip, watched him step into his boxers, her mind drifting a little. </p><p>“Catching flies, Beckett.”</p><p>She snapped her mouth shut and turned away from him, heat suffusing her face. She tugged her bra from its hook and wrapped it around her body, mortified at how easily he got to her. Mortified, thrilled, she didn’t know. She just really wanted him. </p><p>Wanted him - in the room with her, in the shower, in the car. At her side. In her head.</p><p>In her head.</p><p>“You seem distracted, baby.” His body heat close at her back. “Let me help.” His fingers caught her bra strap and dragged it up over her shoulder. His lips touched her skin. </p><p>Kate shivered and turned her head to look at him.</p><p>His smile was soft, but intent for all that, and he kissed her mouth. She wound an arm around him and came up on her toes to press her body to his. He was already breathing fast, his arms encircling her, dragging her up. She moaned against his mouth, into it, and his fingers tangled in her hair, angling her for a deeper, more drugging kiss.</p><p>His hands framed her face, cupping her jaw, taking control of the more, the heat. More. </p><p>She slipped her fingers into his boxers, just under the elastic where his glutes rounded, the firm curve of him. She loved the feel of him, the heat of his groin against hers, the thickness as he got hot for her.</p><p>Castle groaned and slid from her mouth, fingers clutching in her hair. The closet was nice and warm now, her skin prickling everywhere they touched. She squeezed his ass and he grunted, narrowing an eye at her.</p><p>She grinned, kissed the corner of his mouth. “You’re so good at helping.”</p><p>He choked on a laugh, shook his head. “Yeah. I’m not helping whatsoever. Neither are you. Not helping, baby, your hands gripping my ass.”</p><p>“I know,” she said, smothering another stupid grin. “Isn’t it great?”</p><p>“It really is.”</p><p>She did laugh at that, dragged her hands out of his boxers and around his waist, teasing at his navel. “It really is,” she whispered.</p><p>His hand cupped the back of her skull and kissed her softly. So softly that tears pricked her eyes and she had to take a fast breath.</p><p>“Dress, baby.” His hands caught hers at his stomach, brought them up to his mouth. Ten gentle kisses to each of her knuckles, slowly, with a kind of reverence that didn’t help anything. “Both of us should get dressed.”</p><p>He let her go and she let him, she let him; somehow she was still the one in control. He stepped back and grabbed a pair of black pants from just past her head, smirking at her only a little, the balance of power restored.</p><p>She turned around and grabbed her own clothes, her hand faltering as she reached for jeans. She skimmed her fingers at the skirt hanging just beside the built-in shelves, the pretty pleated navy skirt with its silk sheath slip. </p><p>“Castle?”</p><p>She turned as he came back to the doorway of the closet, momentarily distracted by the shirtless expanse of his chest. Broad. That soft trail of hair down to the button of his black combat pants.</p><p>“Kate, honey?”</p><p>She shivered and came awake, her hand dropping from the skirt. “Um, if we - when we - tonight?”</p><p>His face changed, shuttered somehow. She didn’t know what that meant, why he looked both defensive and polite. </p><p>“Tonight is only - tonight,” he said carefully. “It doesn’t have to be-”</p><p>“Can we go out?” she said quickly. Her breath caught in her throat. He look stunned and she  shifted on her feet. “I mean, tonight. D-dinner.”</p><p>Castle came striding forward, grabbed her up and against him, a crushing embrace. “Yeah, yeah. Dinner. I want - would love to take you to dinner, Kate.”</p><p>She let out her breath and eased down into him, her arms wrapping around him. Her eyes closed at the scent of his skin, water and soap. He’d showered earlier this morning, he’d said, and she could smell the musk of him.</p><p>“I want pasta,” she murmured against his neck. “Italian.”</p><p>“Oh, hell,” he whispered. “Fuck, you’re gonna be stuffed with pasta, baby.”</p><p>She laughed, whimpering as she realized what they were doing, would be doing. “Not too stuffed, sweetheart. Leave enough room for you.”</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>-----<br/>She was only wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, and well, okay, the t-shirt was a designer label and fit her like a glove so that every curve and line showed off, and the swell of her breasts - fuck, he was going to miss those nursing, so-full breasts - filled the well-made material perfectly. But.</p><p>She was only wearing jeans and a t-shirt, her feet bare, her hair twisted up in a loose and messy topknot, no make-up save the eyeliner she'd dashed on, and she was the most gorgeous and natural animal he'd ever seen in his life.</p><p>She carried James, who had fallen back asleep and was even now curled into her chest like he never wanted to leave (smart man), into the kitchen and straight to the refrigerator. Castle held Wyatt by the hand, forcing him to walk, do the work, which meant they were going at a much slower pace. But he didn't even have to say a word; Kate pulled out the pedialyte and popped open the top, took a swig before she did anything else.</p><p>Something shaky in his heart began to ease. She was so difficult to gauge. </p><p>Kate glanced at him as he and Wyatt entered the kitchen. She must have seen his regard because she shook the bottle at him a little and lifted an eyebrow. "Want to be as hydrated as possible for tonight."</p><p>"You're going to torment me all day, aren't you?"</p><p>"You're the one who made us stop," she smirked. But she swapped the pedialyte to the hand holding James, and then reached out for him, tugging on his belt loops. She brought him and he felt the heat of her the split second before she kissed him.</p><p>Freely. Spontaneously. Naturally. She kissed him, that humming pleasure in her throat that meant her eyes would be closed when they pulled back.</p><p>And they were. And she opened them and her irises were shot through with gold and green. He never knew eyes could have so many colors, be so textured, show so much and so little at the same time.</p><p>"Scrambled eggs for breakfast," she said. "Protein, right? And milk. And - ha - milk for them."</p><p>It took him a moment, but then he straightened up. "You don't have to nurse-"</p><p>"I think it helps," she murmured, shrugging as she turned back to the fridge. "If they're taking whatever byproducts the elixir creates, then that's less of that shit in my body. Stuff they need anyway."</p><p>He hesitated uncertainly behind her, but she turned around and handed him the carton of eggs, nudging to get him going. He moved mechanically for the frying pan, flipped on the glass heating element. His brain was rolling, churning as he went through diagrams and statistics and reports in his head.</p><p>Kate was the one to take Wyatt by the hand and lead him towards the kitchen table. But she was still talking. "Look, he had me expressing milk every four hours or so. And yeah, I know he liked to fuck with me. But I think fucking with me was a nice side effect of something that was necessary? I've only managed to get through the last few weeks of reports on your laptop, but he was constantly measuring output against their little systems. Which makes me think it's more than just what it does to the boys, but what it means my body has managed to metabolize versus express."</p><p>Castle stood like a rock at the stove, staring down at the egg he'd just crushed in his fist. His hand was soaked in yolk, his fingers dripping to the pan. Egg shells speckled the mess, and he closed his eyes a moment to take a breath.</p><p>Kate hadn't stopped. "So I'll nurse them morning and night, at least for now. They need to be weaned, they're already taking to solid food, but I think with us not knowing why the elixir has healed me, and what exactly it might be doing, and having no back-up, then it's a good idea to follow Black's plan as best we can."</p><p>Castle made a strangled noise and realized it only after it had torn from his throat. Kate's head came up from where she'd been coercing Wyatt to sit in his chair, and she stared at him.</p><p>"Castle?"</p><p>"I..."</p><p>She moved fast. He didn't even see her move, but she was suddenly right at his side, her fingers at his hip, at his wrist, guiding his hands over to the sink. "Hey, baby, let's wash this off, okay?"</p><p>He uttered some kind of assent, though he hadn't meant to. He wanted to deny her, wanted to tell her no never but she was right.</p><p>He hadn't wanted to see it, hadn't had the guts to tell her we might still have to do everything he did to you. But it had been in the back of his mind all along.</p><p>Kate had turned on the water, her fingers were gently prying his open. Egg shell and the mangled yellow yolk flipped out of his fist and plopped to the sink, only to be washed right down the drain. Kate rubbed his hand between her own, ridding him of the sticky remnants, and then she pumped a dollop of sweet-smelling soap onto his palm.</p><p>She washed his hand between hers, fingers both erotic and sweet, that curious paradox of Kate Beckett, and the silence in his head finally fell away and he heard again the boys' chatter back and forth, the crackle of the pan on the stovetop, and the rush of the water in the sink.</p><p>When his hand was clean, she brought his dripping fingers to her lips and dusted a kiss across his tips.</p><p>"Come on, love. It's going to be okay," she murmured, lifting her eyes to his. "Finish breakfast for us?"</p><p>He nodded, unable to clear his throat, and snaked his free arm around her neck, tugging her roughly against him.</p><p>It was intolerable to lose her now. He couldn't. </p><p>He would not survive it.</p><p>-----</p><p>Breakfast was messy and loud. She'd been so long in quiet, stifling quiet, that it was thrilling and scary and edge of her seat, trying to keep the boys wrestled into chairs and clean food off their faces, the floor, the ceiling, the walls, trying to get food in their mouths, trying to coordinate with Castle and Colin over Wyatt's screeches, trying to hear over both boys' humming and constant sounds.</p><p>She was standing up over James, trying to 'help' him guide eggs into his mouth with the pincer grip that Castle deemed all-important (she had read some of the notes, and she understood it was something about fine motor skills), when Wyatt suddenly ceased shouting nonsense and looked over at her.</p><p>"Mommy." A beaming smile, an arch of his back against the chair that caused Colin to dart in and catch him. But Wyatt lifted his arms to her, egg smeared in his hair and across his face, and he called her again. "Mommy. Mommy." Fingers opening and closing, flexing for her.</p><p>She laid a hand on James's head, glanced to Castle, but he was already hurrying from the kitchen to help, taking her place. She moved to Wyatt and caught him at his armpits, lifting him out of his chair and onto her hip. Keeping his face away from her white shirt.</p><p>"Are you all done?" she asked, wiping her thumb across his mouth. She came away with jelly - bad idea, jelly on their toast, not doing that again - and she had to grab a piece of shredded napkin (not ever handing them napkins again either) and clean her whole hand.</p><p>And his. And his mouth. Wyatt whined and tried to arch away from her, and she actually managed to hang on to him - minor miracle - finished cleaning his mouth.</p><p>"Um, I think you guys need a bath," she frowned, wrinkling her nose at him.</p><p>"No, Mommy!"</p><p>Colin's jaw dropped, but Castle laughed. "Ah, he's going to be the problem child, isn't he?"</p><p>"Are you, baby?" she chuckled, cupping the back of his head to keep him from pitching backwards. "No, not a problem. Tell Daddy you're just energetic."</p><p>"Daddy!"</p><p>Castle was beaming, his smile as bright and wide as Wyatt's. James made a dissatisfied noise into their mutually-admiring grins, and Kate glanced down to him. </p><p>"Oh, poor baby," she laughed, reaching over to his plate. She used her fingers to comb his scrambled eggs into a little pile. "Try that, honey. Might be easier."</p><p>James gave her that shy, overwhelmed smile through his lashes and went back to work on his breakfast. </p><p>"Here, since James is still eating - hand off the messy, energetic one and I'll push him into the shower."</p><p>Kate released Wyatt to his daddy and went back to hovering over James, surprised by how much energy she had herself. Breakfast had been insane, but good. </p><p>"You good here?" Castle murmured, talking around Wyatt's fingers probing his mouth. </p><p>"I'm good. And Colin's standing guard," she said, giving him a self-deprecating smile. </p><p>Castle leaned in and kissed her softly, one of his hands cupping the back of her skull. "Be thinking about what you want to do with them? Maybe we could.. I don't know. Do something."</p><p>She took a breath, nodding. "Yeah. Be good to... do something."</p><p>Castle beamed again, looking as pleased with himself as Wyatt had been calling her name, and then he turned and left her with James and Colin.</p><p>Do something? She had no idea what they were supposed to do.</p><p>----</p><p>“He’s not too heavy?” Castle asked her again.</p><p>Kate shook her head, her arms braced under James’s bottom to hold him against her. She was carrying her son, end of discussion. Now that she could? Yeah, she was going to hold these boys for as long as they’d let her, and James, it turned out, was entirely a mama’s boy.</p><p>Not that Wyatt didn’t have his moments of clingy and whiny Mommy but James’s cuddling was quiet, steady. He wouldn’t complain if he didn’t have her, but when he had her, he wanted to be close.</p><p>It made her heart hurt in the best kind of way.</p><p>She and Castle were carrying the boys across the wooden bridge to the gravel where the cars were parked. Colin had left an hour ago, on his own errands, researching possible facilities, and to keep their minds off that mission, Kate had suggested taking the boys somewhere new. Pack a lunch. Just get out.</p><p>Castle hadn’t protested; he had seemed to know precisely what she wanted. </p><p>The lake. Showing her on the map a quiet strip of sandy forested beach where he had some property on Lake Ontario. No buildings, only a kind of deer stand and hunting blind that Castle used. </p><p>It sounded exactly right.</p><p>“All right, here we are,” Castle said, his voice echoing across the wood and coming back to her. He had already remote unlocked the car doors and he was hurrying now to reach the passenger side.</p><p>Kate wouldn’t admit that James was getting heavy, not when the walk to the car had been so relatively short. She stood before the open door and waited on Castle, humming softly to James as he laid his cheek against her. Wyatt was busy and active even trapped in his father’s arms, but James was cuddly.</p><p>She loved the curl of his hair at his nape, the dark wisps that she stroked with her fingers. He seemed to really love her petting him too, so it worked quite nicely.</p><p>“Wyatt’s buckled in,” Castle said, coming back to her and holding his hands out for James. “Come on, Jay. Your turn.”</p><p>James peeled from her shoulder, not reluctant exactly but she could feel his little sigh as he was pulled away. She ducked past Castle’s arm and kissed James’s neck, making him squirm and smile shyly at her.</p><p>“Let Daddy strap you in,” she murmured. “I’ll be right up front.”</p><p>“Come on, guys,” Castle sighed, moving past her to place James in his carseat. “You guys are breaking my heart. We’re going to the beach, build some sand castles, run in the water. We’re gonna have fun. No more long sighs and mooning after your mother.”</p><p>Kate huffed at him, swatting his ass as he leaned in to buckle up James. “If he wants to moon after me, let him.”</p><p>She opened the passenger door, but Castle had turned around fast, stepped into her. His arms wrapped low around her and he tugged until she had shuffled into him. He lowered his head, teasing her mouth with his. “I’m the only one who can moon after you.”</p><p>“Of your own making,” she reminded him, sliding her hand down to run her knuckles against his crotch.</p><p>Castle grunted and closed his eyes, forehead crashing into hers. “Exactly what - what I’m talking about.” He actually shivered and then his eyes popped open, his grin wide even as she could hardly focus, he was so close to her. “Feels fucking fantastic, doesn’t it? Thrill of the chase or something.”</p><p>She grinned back, nudging her knuckles into him a little harder. “Mm, or something, baby.”</p><p>He pouted, an overblown and highly exaggerated version of Wyatt’s usual, and it made her laugh. Castle cupped the back of her head and teased his thumb against her cheek, down to her bottom lip. “You don’t feel it? Tell me you don’t absolutely crackle with energy every time we’re close, every brush of skin, every broken off kiss.”</p><p>She had to remember to breathe.</p><p>Castle grinned, that rumble starting in his chest that made her think of the wolves in the woods. </p><p>She wondered if that mama wolf and her babies had some broad, barrel-chested protector out there, watching from the ridge, ready to attack should they be threatened.</p><p>Somehow she thought they did.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle kept an eye on her all during their drive, though it took them only thirty minutes to reach the property. He’d taken the Jeep overland through the thin trees, avoiding the more marshy areas when he could, splattering mud when he couldn’t.</p><p>Boys liked the mud. Both of them startling and clapping, Wyatt laughing as the mud hit the windshield or the undercarriage.</p><p>Kate was quiet but she didn’t look tired. Which was something.</p><p>She kept turning around in her seat to watch the boys, smiling with them, she and James the same kind of quiet, little warm ghosts, but it seemed just fine. He was feeling optimistic again about their day.</p><p>He eventually had to park; he’d run out of ridge, and the trees were no longer the young saplings of new growth. This was old growth forest here, and the trunks were wide and yellow-brown mossy, while the sunlight flickered and swayed with the tossing of the leaves.</p><p>Nice breeze, this close to the lake, and Castle stood there a moment, his boots thankfully on dry-enough ground, and he let his eyes close, breathing it in.</p><p>The passenger door opened and he heard Kate getting down, and he was pleasantly happy with the thought that she was taking more initiative, making her own choices, rather than waiting for him to come around and start the process.</p><p>Castle opened the back door and met Wyatt’s thoroughly grinning face, had to laugh himself. “You’re our comic relief, kid.” He ducked the boy’s head with a hand and started unbuckling him from the seat. He could see Kate doing the same with James and he kept his ear cocked for sounds of tiredness, certain she’d tell on herself.</p><p>Maybe not. She had a very good poker face. Three years, hell yeah she had a good poker face.</p><p>“Hey, put him on his feet, see how well he does on the rough terrain,” Castle said, trying to make it sound like an experiment, what else can our kid do? Kate took the bait though, and she flashed him a little grin, watch this, and she set James down to explore under his own power.</p><p>Wyatt clapped and Castle gave a mock bow, gathering the kid into his arms. “I’m glad you appreciate my efforts. But you do realize it means you’re getting put down too?”</p><p>Wyatt wrinkled his nose, hamming it up, whatever it was, and Castle laughed and set the boy on his feet.</p><p>Wyatt really didn’t like that. Spongy, shifting ground, and Wyatt stood absolutely still, tilted his head back to Castle and squawked.</p><p>Kate was watching him across the seats, but her gaze was distracted by James who had run on ahead, obviously at ease with the marshier forest. “Go,” Castle told her. “I’ll unpack the bags. Chase him - not sure he’ll want to stop when he sees the lake.”</p><p>“Oh, shit,” she breathed, and turned immediately to follow James.</p><p>But of course, James hadn’t dashed away. James was James, and the kid was steady on his feet, yes, but he wasn’t a speed demon and he wasn’t going to throw himself headlong into trouble. Unlike Wyatt, who was still making noise at Castle’s feet, completely not happy with the way the earth moved under him.</p><p>“Sorry, kid. Get used to it.” Castle reached in and grabbed the boys’ bag they’d packed, realizing it might actually require a whole bag of paraphernalia to make it through a long morning and lunch out here alone. He also snagged the cooler with their lunch, the laptop, and his stack of files that he’d shoved into a cross-body bag. He got everything situated on him, and turned around, gently easing shut the door of the Jeep.</p><p>Wyatt hadn’t moved. He had, in fact, squatted down as if to keep his feet on his surfboard. </p><p>Castle bent over and dusted his fingers through the top of Wyatt’s head, brushing hair off his face. “Okay, kid, listen. I love you. Mommy loves you. But I’m leaving you here and you’ll have to come on your own.”</p><p>He moved slowly, giving Wyatt time to get used to the idea, and then he stepped around the Jeep and closed James’s door as well. When he got back to the hood of the Jeep, Wyatt was on his hands and knees.</p><p>Like maybe he’d attempted to crawl, but that too had been unacceptable.</p><p>Castle glanced towards the path Kate had taken after James, and then back to Wyatt. “I wasn’t kidding. You have to walk, kid. You’re old enough - I looked it up on the internet. I know James has had more practice, but anything he can do, you can too. Come on. Stand up. Walk.”</p><p>Wyatt looked at him balefully from behind lowered brows. Entirely immobile.</p><p>Castle wondered how bad it would be to actually turn around and start walking. Did that scar a kid for life?</p><p>Weren’t they already scarred?</p><p>Castle rubbed his jaw and glanced down the trail again, shifting the weight of bags on his shoulders as he debated scooping up the kid and carrying him around for the rest of his life.</p><p>No. “Wyatt,” he called quietly, taking a step back even as he did. “Come on. Stand up and walk for me. Let’s go find Mommy.”</p><p>“Mommy?”</p><p>“She’s chasing after James.”</p><p>A grunt that might have been his brother’s name. Maybe. Could be. Wyatt was definitely finding sounds faster.</p><p>“Did you say James?” Castle cajoled. “Let’s go find him. And run after Mommy. Come on, Wy. You can do this. Just like the stairs.”</p><p>But Wyatt wasn’t having it. He sat down on his bottom and kicked his feet in the underbrush, rattling sticks and old leaves.</p><p>Castle regarded him a moment and then made his choice.</p><p>He took another step back, warning his son as he did. “I’m headed out, Wyatt. I’m going after Mommy.” He kept moving farther down the path, never once turning his entire back on the kid, not sure that was wise right now, but he was definitely putting distance between them.</p><p>Wyatt didn’t budge. But that stubborn get my own way faded a little, while the unhappiness began to echo with surprise. Maybe even a sharp flare of why.</p><p>Why. Where are you going. Where are you going. Why. Not in so many words, but the sense of things, confusion and awareness, the bridge of growing distance.</p><p>And Wyatt wasn’t the little empath. Just a really damn good broadcaster. </p><p>Interesting. But also not helpful for this moment. How to make his son get up off his ass and walk?</p><p>Suddenly he felt Kate at his back, trying to shrug one of the bags off his shoulder and take it on herself. “Hey, I found the hunting blind. It’s nice and cozy and it’s so close to the water. I want the blanket we packed-”</p><p>Kate seemed to realize how far away Wyatt was, still back by the car, because her stream of conversation cut off abruptly. She studied Wyatt and then turned a swift look to him.</p><p>He tried to come up with a fast answer, a way to explain how important it was that neither of his sons be made to feel they lacked, that they were hopeless against the other brother.</p><p>But Kate didn’t seem to see it. She instead wriggled her fingers at Wyatt and gestured for him to get moving. “Come on, Wyatt. Falling behind, sweetheart.”</p><p>Kate turned to go back down the path and it was like magic.</p><p>Wyatt stood on his feet and went racing after her.</p><p>-----</p><p>She was soaked to the knees with the lake, though Wyatt clung stubbornly to the rolled cuff of her jeans, wet as it was. The two of them stood on the shore while Castle, stripped to his boxers, paddled a few feet away from them in the shallows of the lake. Castle's chest brushed the bottom, she could tell, and he used his knees to keep him level, but James - the kid was an otter, the water clearly over his head even if he'd been standing.</p><p>Wyatt did seem faintly morose to be left behind. </p><p>Kate dusted her fingers over the top of his head, combing back the wet strands from his face. "It's okay," she told him. He might not be able to hear her over the sound of the waves on the sand at their feet. "You don't have to swim. I can teach you when you're older."</p><p>Wyatt's head tilted back to look up at her, as if he heard the sounds but not the words. Both he and James were only in diapers, and those becoming saggy and waterlogged, but their little legs had some roundness to them, sun dappling the creases of their skin. </p><p>Kate smudged a white line of sunscreen with her thumb, rubbing it into Wyatt's cheek. He whined and ducked his head into her knee, but he wasn't upset or unhappy. He just seemed to like to talk back, to raise a fuss or let her know where he stood on things. He just - talked. Not with words, maybe, but he wanted to be in on the conversation, the exchange.</p><p>She reached down and gripped his wrist, prying his fingers from her knee, and she started walking. "Let's leave the swimmers to it. You and me, Wyatt. We'll go exploring." She shaded her eyes with one hand, surveying the narrow strip of beach. The trees came right up to and into the water, so that one finger of forest blended right into the lake, creating spindly sticks and trunks that looked like driftwood.</p><p>Wyatt came with her, grumbling about the shifting sand under his bare feet, gasping aloud when water came over their toes. His grip on her finger was tight, belying his easy-going attitude, but even as it scared him, he really loved it.</p><p>He loved what scared him.</p><p>She knew that feeling.</p><p>She led Wyatt towards the grove of water-trees, the sand mixing with soil now, becoming mud and clay rather than beach. Wyatt seemed to like that better, and she found herself enjoying the thick wet feel of mud between her toes. Wyatt got into the spirit of their adventure, began hopping forward, or trying to hop, little two-footed skips as he splashed in mud puddles and splattered them.</p><p>"Mommy!"</p><p>"I know," she laughed. "It's so fun."</p><p>"Daddy!"</p><p>"He's back there swimming with James."</p><p>Wyatt's face flooded with a frustration she'd seen often these last few days, an indication that what he'd wanted her to know she hadn't guessed. He grunted something into the sky and splashed purposefully in a muddy puddle, making spatters across her calves.</p><p>"Daddy!" he insisted.</p><p>She hesitated, half-turning back for the beach where they'd been keeping lookout on her two fish, but Wyatt tugged on her hand. Tugged and tugged until she wasn't facing back anymore.</p><p>"Daddy," he said, growling again at the end of it as it failed to produce the response he wanted.</p><p>He was searching for words. Could a fourteen month old be so linguistically developed? And why couldn't he? Castle surely talked enough. </p><p>Kate bent down over him, cupped his face, hoping he could sense somehow just how much she wanted to know. "What are you trying to tell me, baby?"</p><p>"Daddy," he said, sighing a little. This time he plopped his foot into the mud and it squished instead of splattering, sucking at his toes. This seemed to have surprised surprised him, because Wyatt startled with laughter, releasing her hand to applaud.</p><p>And then she got it.</p><p>"Oh, baby, you meant like Daddy in the Jeep? When Daddy drove us here and it splattered mud everywhere."</p><p>"Daddy!" Wyatt lifted both arms to her, beaming so delightedly. She grinned and picked him up, mud ruining her white shirt, but she didn't care. She'd understood what he meant, she had actually done it right.</p><p>"Daddy drove us and splattered mud everywhere, didn't he? We'll have to wash our Jeep when we get home."</p><p>Wyatt beamed. "Eep!"</p><p>She laughed, delighted herself now, hugging him against her as his muddy fingers smeared her neck. "What a smart boy. You can teach your brother that one, James. Jeep."</p><p>"Eep!"</p><p>"Who needs swimming?" she murmured, kissing his cheeks.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle found Kate and Wyatt climbing stunted trees at the water line - both of them absolutely filthy, covered in mud head to toe.</p><p>He and James stopped abruptly, his surprise probably as great as his son's, even considering the fact that James might never have seen mud before. Or two human beings caked in it.</p><p>"Well, now," he said, his voice carrying over the water and startling Kate.</p><p>She yelped and slipped in the mud, sitting down hard on her ass, leaving Wyatt clutching his driftwood, a broken off tree trunk that was slippery with moss and lake-growth. "Daddy!" he cried out, but he didn't move, gripping the trunk with both hands.</p><p>"Mommy!" James called back, one of his little hands coming up to Castle's pant legs and hanging on.</p><p>"Mama's fine," he told the kid, taking the kid's to help him over the bracken that had grown up where the lake met the shore. "She's just been playing in the mud."</p><p>"Hey, guys." Kate was already standing again, slipping as her bare feet refused to hold, catching herself on a branch. She and Wyatt were probably only a foot away from the muddy shore, but the lake had reclaimed so much of the shoreline here that the trees seemed to grow up out of the water. "Come on out."</p><p>"How deep is it there?" he called to her. Mud in her pony tail, handprints on her shirt, mud smeared under her neck, a big stain of it at the seat of her jeans.</p><p>"Not deep," she said, shaking her head and standing upright. At her knees then. "You won't have to hold him, but careful of the moss, or algae, whatever it is. Um, slippery, obviously." She rolled her eyes at herself and held her hands out to Wyatt.</p><p>Castle helped James doggy paddle over to them, keeping a light hand under the boy's belly since he was so tired. It hunched Castle over, and he had a definite crick in his back, but James was as quick and deft as a fish. And he'd known the water. Which meant there was a section of training the boy had been given that Castle hadn't gotten to yet in the notes - so concerned over Kate that he'd neglected the boys.</p><p>"Hey," Kate said, smiling at him even as she tried to coax Wyatt off of his tree. </p><p>"Hey, there," he said back, "mud monster."</p><p>She grinned, a flash of her white teeth against the smear of mud at her cheek. "Yeah. We fell - Wyatt fell - and so we just got messy and had fun."</p><p>She'd been having fun. He could see how much, just how much fun she and Wyatt had found without them. And he didn't want to point it out - how she'd taken Wyatt off alone, just the two of them, how she'd trusted herself or maybe just how she'd felt unbroken enough this morning to do it - but he was proud of her.</p><p>"Wyatt," he called softly, watching the boy hug his tree. "Don't you want to get down and have lunch."</p><p>"No!"</p><p>Kate laughed, that brilliant thing, lighting up the whole lake, and she got her hands in under his arms. "Sure you do. I think you meant yes and you just don't know how to say it yet. Sayyes Wyatt."</p><p>"Es!"</p><p>Castle's shock rippled over him, but Kate turned a smug little grin his way. "We've been talking. Wyatt, tell Daddy the other words you've learned."</p><p>"Daddy, eep, mud!"</p><p>"Eep mud - oh, Jeep. The mud got on the Jeep, didn't it. Yeah. Wow. Fuck, Kate, that's-"</p><p>"About as unnatural as that one swimming like a baby otter?" Kate said, nodding towards James. He'd forgotten to prop the kid up, but James was grinning as he paddled in slow little circles, completely natural.</p><p>"Yeah, about like that," he muttered, bending down to scoop up their fish. "Alright, enough showing off, both of you. Wyatt, you let Mommy get you down, and we'll all dry off and have lunch."</p><p>He had a soaking wet kid against his chest, Kate was mud-splattered and smelling faintly of chlorophyll and fish, but the moment she had Wyatt in her arms, he gripped the back of her neck and pulled her into him. She laughed against his lips at first, a little thrill of anticipation, and then her mouth sealed over his.</p><p>He tasted silt and sunlight, and underneath that the peculiar rich darkness that was Kate. Her existence. He had fought for weeks, had actively denied it, but tragedy was part of her DNA now, trauma was a vein in the bedrock of her soul, and to pretend it didn’t exist led to a knife in the back.</p><p>More importantly - most importantly - blinding himself to that sharp, textured blade that was Beckett led straight to nightmares where she woke screaming, panic attacks that overrode her own will, and terror that crowded in on all sides until she was afraid to touch her own sons.</p><p>Afraid to dream.</p><p>Oh, Kate. He wanted so badly for her to dream, no matter how tentatively, to push herself out past the bounds of immediate now, and find herself in the future. Their future.</p><p>Even if she went her own way, even if she opened her eyes one day and saw him for the son of Black he was, he wanted it for her. He ached to give her the days, the months, the years of certainty that came with knowing she was and would be alive.</p><p>Part of this life. Any life at all. Even if she chose one away from him.</p><p>He kissed her now, slowly, and felt her grief and horror like a blade against his tongue, bringing up that copper tang in his own mouth, the metallic impression of blood. Warm and sacred, cleansing.</p><p>She wasn’t just an orphan girl. She wasn’t a college co-ed who’d gone through hard times. It was no ordinary grief, no ordinary horror. She encompassed all of that, but she was more. And the more of Beckett rooted him to the spot, his arms locked around both boys, his mouth hungry over hers, the lake licking and cooling his overwrought body.</p><p>The more of Beckett meant the knife, but he’d already proven he could handle the blood. He was going into this with his eyes wide open and his reflexes honed, but he was doing it for her. Because of her. If he didn’t, she’d cut herself to ribbons, bleed to death still fighting.</p><p>Kate broke from his mouth with a sharp breath, but her lips were a fraction from his own, hovering there. He couldn’t see her eyes this close, couldn’t see anything other than the blur of lashes of the false-soft curve of her cheek, but he felt the tremor running through her, and how it was transmitted through the boys they held together.</p><p>He loosened his grip on her hair and combed it down her back, unable to completely let go, unwilling to stop. He kissed her again, softly, with his palm between her shoulder blades, and then he stepped back. He kept close enough to catch Wyatt if she felt as weak and washed out as he did, but she had him.</p><p>She did look like she felt it too, but she had both arms supporting their quiet unquiet son, and even Wyatt looked like he felt it.</p><p>James was a silent witness against him, his head on Castle’s shoulder, but when Kate straightened up to pull away, James reached out and caught her mud-splattered shirt, fisting the collar.</p><p>“Mommy,” he murmured, and they both knew there were words below the surface, words he didn’t have words for yet. It was plain in the tone of his voice and the beseeching in his eyes. Wyatt squirmed between them, but he didn’t try to interrupt.</p><p>Kate cupped James’s little face in her free hand and kissed him too, lips to lips, stroking her thumb over his clean cheek. “Yes, James, sweetheart. Love you too.”</p><p>And then she released him and turned to head back to shore, Wyatt on her hip, but Castle was struck dumb where he stood, rooted like one of the bleached, weathered trees struggling out of the lake.</p><p>Love you too only meant exactly what he’d been telling himself her kisses, her body meant. He’d wanted to believe it was true, had been so certain it was, but she might as well have said the words right into his mouth.</p><p>Love you too.</p><p>-----</p><p>Maybe it was the sand and the sunlight, maybe it was the freedom, but Kate had never seen Castle so alive.</p><p>He was electric with it, whatever secret formula of light and air, and she knew he was filling up her whole being with it too, like she'd been an empty vessel until he'd poured himself out into her.</p><p>Even his eyes were warm every time their gazes met. </p><p>They'd camped out in his hunting blind, a lean-to between three trees with mosquito netting camouflaging the entrance. It was wide enough for all four of them, and the boys had already eaten their mushy bananas and stained their hands with blueberries before finishing off pulled chicken. They had curled up on the wooden floor at the base of the south wall, both boys on a towel, salt-sweat dried on their skins, reeking of sunscreen and lake water, their cheeks pink and their bellies full.</p><p>She and Castle sat shoulder to shoulder against the other wall, a thin tree trunk at her right and Castle at her left, the boys sprawled on the other side of him. Her face and arms were red with the morning's sun, felt good to be a little raw to the touch for once, and she was pleasantly tired.</p><p>Castle was piling pulled chicken onto not-quite-wilted spinach leaves, a variety of salad greens in the mix, and all she had to do was tilt her cheek down to his shoulder and watch.</p><p>He startled when she did, but it was only a little jolt, and his hand came up to touch briefly at her neck, as if to make sure she really was there. She closed her eyes and felt the latent warmth of the day in the air, the patch of sun where it filtered through the trees and pressed hard across her knee, and the curiously soft wall of grey-wood planks at her back.</p><p>"Tired?" he murmured.</p><p>"Little. Good tired, though. Playing all morning."</p><p>"Playing," he hummed.</p><p>She smiled because she could hear how proud of himself he was. "You didn't get much play time as a kid, did you, Castle?"</p><p>"No play time," he said. His voice was soft to not disturb the kids, not disturb the woods, she thought, but it was also entirely distinct. She heard every nuance of his sound. "We had training sessions that we liked better than others, that I guess we turned into play, but mostly because they were competitions. Sport."</p><p>"Mm, like?"</p><p>"Archery, knife-throwing, the things we thought were cool, I guess. When I passed up Alex and Ben, who were a lot older than me, they weren't happy about it. I thought I was hot stuff."</p><p>She opened her eyes and grinned at the little flash of wry deprecation on his face. "You are hot stuff, Castle. Entirely justified."</p><p>He chuckled - he looked surprised too - and he handed her the bag of salad he'd mixed the chicken into. "Ah, justified. I see. I'm sure my brothers wouldn't agree."</p><p>"They don't know you like I do. I get those big, clever fingers doing all kinds of-"</p><p>"I certainly hope they don't know me like you do."</p><p>She laughed back, watching that little squirm of revulsion on his face. His sun-kissed face, with the white skin at the creases where he had laughed and smiled so much today that the color had turned him golden. She couldn't help reaching up and touching the sharp apple of his cheek where even now he was smiling so hard.</p><p>"What has you so happy?" she murmured, salad forgotten in her lap.</p><p>His chest filled, such a deep and sustaining breath that for a moment she was jealous. Of what, she couldn't pinpoint, maybe the ease, maybe the deep expanse, maybe the air that filled him, such a part of him, vital and helpful both.</p><p>He finally shrugged, glanced up as if he had to - had to keep his eyes off her to keep from devouring her - and she was a little pleased by that, the idea that he had to force himself away from her to prevent a mauling. "Just this," he said into the quiet. "Something about it. Open. The close trees. The water."</p><p>"The sky," she sighed. </p><p>He nodded. She wondered if he ever went camping, bare subsistence living kind of camping like she'd done with her father once through Yosemite. Stars and a sleeping bag, a fire in the morning for coffee. That gritty feeling of having slept in her clothes for five days and showered in a stream as cold as ice.</p><p>"Colin has to get away but sometimes I do too," Castle said. "But I never realized how much I wanted to get away with someone. To share it, not to have it alone."</p><p>She felt the sharp ache of that alone. And it resounded with the ache of alone she'd had the last three years, cut off, untouched, separate, caged.</p><p>He sighed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to... be sad."</p><p>"It's okay," she told him, threading her arm through his. "The difference between now and then - that makes it sweeter. Don't you think? Knowing it's done. It's over."</p><p>"I hope it's over," he husked. "I don't... want to do this alone. Not when I know... like you said, I guess. Knowing what I was missing."</p><p>She realized that he meant for her to be the one with him out here. He meant for her to be the one always there; she was his never alone again.</p><p>The ache was so clear and sharp that it cut with every breath. Made words impossible.</p><p>His thumb traced the rise of her knee and then his hand hovered above her leg, like he wanted to claim, like he wished for it, but he knew he couldn't. She didn't think; she just felt, felt, ached, and she nudged her knee up into the perfect curve of his palm.</p><p>His hand fit over her knee like a cap, protective and warm, and his fingers curled around to the back of her knee and tickled just a little, entirely right, the complement to her shape. His thumb pressed into her patella at the top, rough somehow, bringing to mind the bruises she'd already incurred.</p><p>But that was right too, she thought. Without the pain there was no awareness, without the jolt to her nervous system, she was merely existing.</p><p>"I try to come out here every year," he said into that bruising press of his thumb. "I camp for a week in this blind, mostly lying on my back and watching the leaves move in the trees."</p><p>"No hunting?"</p><p>"I hunt enough," he sighed. "Not bringing it here too."</p><p>"Other places?" she asked, thoughtlessly, before she realized-</p><p>"Other places. People," he murmured. </p><p>Not animals - not deer or pheasant or safaris, no - he hunted people. That was his job, she realized. Not just turning foreign agents and inculcating assets, he was an assassin.</p><p>Of course he was. Of course - raised by John Black on this program of training and elixir. Ofcourse he was.</p><p>"You don't hunt animals?" she asked.</p><p>He sighed. "I don't know if I do. Probably some of them. But I never asked before. It never mattered, so long as they'd been targeted by the CIA as unfriendlies."</p><p>She wondered why it didn't bother her, why it didn't send that icy river straight down her bones and into her heart like it had with Black. Black who had been quite polite, always calm unless she'd managed to get to him; Black who had liked the finer things. Black whose eyes were dead and cold, blank nothing, a blank nothing that always sifted down through her fiercest resolve, blanketing her like snow, snuffing out her every conviction, suffocating her soul-</p><p>"Kate."</p><p>She gasped and clutched at the hands clutching her, eyes wide, open, and yet for one second longer, not seeing, not seeing, blinded by white. And then it all snapped back, just that fast, Castle and his blue blue worry, Castle and his golden stripes likes whiskers at his eyes.</p><p>"Kate?" he whispered. Golden striped, but his face pale and white as a fish, lips bloodless as he held on to her.</p><p>"There is... such a world of difference between you and him sometimes I don't... I can't make it fit. You don't fit, Castle. You're not - where did you even come from?"</p><p>Pink suffused his neck, crawled up to touch his lips so that his mouth fell open.</p><p>She pushed the bag of salad off her lap and slid her knee over his thigh, straddled his hips with her arms around his neck. He embraced her cautiously, and she knew he didn't understand, but she wanted the heat of his torso to burn out memory.</p><p>"I don't know how you survived him," she choked out. "I don't know how you got out of there so - so - perfect."</p><p>Castle laughed. Big sounds, grateful and relieved sounds that shook them both, but he held her tighter, all of her, and laughed until she thought maybe he was crying.</p><p>She thought her neck was wet with him. But maybe it was her.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fuck, he was weeping all over her. Why the fuck was he crying? He just broke somewhere inside, like a bone snapping in two, clean and quick, and it let everything out of him.</p><p>Kate’s hands cradled his head and tried to pull his eyes up to her, but he stayed buried in her neck, completely unwilling to face her. “Sorry,” he mumbled, shame burning hot under his skin. He didn’t want to cry about something so stupid, something that had never mattered before.</p><p>“Don’t have to be sorry. Not your fault.”</p><p>He sucked in another faulty breath, realized he was rubbing his eyes against her neck like the boys. Stupid. Such a fucking imbecile. He had to stop. This was ridiculous.</p><p>Castle cleared his throat and lifted his head, swiping fast at the evidence left on his face, not looking at her. Her felt her thumbs running over his cheeks and his face burned, his chest tight with how fucking mortifying it was to be no better than Wyatt, melodramatic and clingy, who was only one year old.</p><p>She kissed the corner of his mouth and that only made it worse, the pity in the downturned lips. He realized he was gripping her thighs too tightly, as if to hold on, and he loosened his grip and withdrew his hands.</p><p>Kate’s caught his own, clasped between their bodies, and he studied the thin strength of her fingers curled around his, tried to take deep and regular breaths.</p><p>“Lie down,” she murmured, rocking forward into him.</p><p>He grunted, his head aching under his scalp as if a thunderstorm was rolling in, high pressure meet a low and diffusing inside his skull. </p><p>“Lie down, Rick,” she said softly. Her mouth brushed his jaw as she spoke in his ear. “Show me what it was like. How you watched the leaves.”</p><p>He sucked in hard, stunned breath but he leaned back, his abdominals working to stabilize both of them as she rode him down to the dirt-packed floor of the hunting blind.</p><p>Kate slithered over his chest and laid down beside him, her leg hooked around his and her cheek against his shoulder. Her palm pressed in at his sternum as if to push him into the ground, as if to keep him steady, and he curled his arm around her neck slowly.</p><p>He dusted her elbow, the ladder of her ribs, and finally tucked his thumb into the waistband of her jeans. His fingers traced against her cool skin under the white shirt, and Kate returned the favor, her designs tattooed over his heart.</p><p>Her breath was warm when she exhaled, warm against his bare skin. </p><p>“Leaves are beautiful,” she murmured. “There must be a breeze up above the canopy.”</p><p>He finally opened his eyes.</p><p>The world seemed to sway off its axis, dizzying, the sky swinging wildly. He had to clamp down on the earth to keep from falling off, and only then did he realize why.</p><p>Kate threw everything off kilter. </p><p>Her weight at his side caused a subtle shift in perspective as he’d had to make room for her body next to his inside the blind. With Kate, nothing was the same. The years he’d spent out here studying the sky and being hypnotized by the pattern of the leaves, listening to their incomprehensible language she had just blown up with the space of a breath.</p><p>“Must be a breeze,” he echoed dumbly. Must be. How new it all was from here, how different it felt inside himself when he looked up at the sky. </p><p>“Does it change anything?” she sighed. Her thumb brushed over his nipple, popping back and forth along the hard ridge like she had no idea what she was doing. “Does it help?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he croaked, that electric current buzzing to life. “Helps - changes everything. Everything has changed.”</p><p>“Good,” she murmured. “I don’t want you to be lonely, even if you’re watching the leaves against the sky. Even then, I want... you to have something.”</p><p>In case he didn’t have her. </p><p>He’d never come back here if he didn’t. </p><p>Oh, God, even the thought of some future day, the long and silent trek in the Jeep, the pitted roads, the muddy ridge that led slowly out towards the coast, it was all too clear. All too real, still not so far off.</p><p>Some future clouded day, the silence outside and in, the sun unable to struggle away from the leaden sky.</p><p>He’d never be able to do it, couldn’t imagine wanting to, now that it was ruined by the weight of her body against his and the sound of her voice in these trees.</p><p>But another part of him, a darker part of him, was more afraid of the day when he would. When he came here alone, and laid down in this exact spot, just to feel something of her at all.</p><p>Just to have something, even if it hurt.</p><p>----- </p><p>She hadn’t helped at all.</p><p>She knew she hadn’t fixed anything, that there was something forlorn and lonely in them both and those places were touching each other’s right now. She didn’t know how to talk and make things better, and she’d tried to - to give him something to have, to hang on to, but she didn’t think it had worked.</p><p>But it really was beautiful here. The evergreens and the deadwood, the saplings and the paper birch and quaking aspen. Cottonwood seeds drifted in the air, soft and white, and the sunlight poured through and pierced the undergrowth.</p><p>“My mom taught me the names of the most common trees in New York State,” she said. His skin was warm under her cheek but ripples scattered across his stomach as she spoke. “She had this heavy, bound book called Know Your Trees. I loved the hand-drawn paintings - I didn’t really care so much about learning their names.”</p><p>“Do you know any of these?” His voice was a rumble against her ear.</p><p>She let her eyes linger along the line of trees, the trunks thick and crowded here where wildfires hadn’t penetrated for years. “Hickory, chestnut, hemlock, honey-locust. Silver maple, red spruce. White oak. Hmm... black willow.” </p><p>“Oh,” he murmured. “You’re right. Black willow.” </p><p>“You know the trees?”</p><p>“I know the trees,” he sighed. “Made us call them by name. Always said we had to know the land where we lived better than the beasts. In case the dogs came baying.”</p><p>She rubbed her thumb over his sternum, wondering how that had gone. Not like her mother, turning pages in a beautiful book as Kate sat with her elbows on her knees, pretending the trees all housed gnomes like David.</p><p>“He never had me learn intelligence,” she said, thinking about it carefully now. Carefully. Probe the wound, but not too deep. “No facts, no names of trees, no foreign languages. I’d have liked to learn a foreign language, I think.” </p><p>“You still can,” he said. His fingers drew a circle along her shoulder. “I could teach you. I had a lot of language immersion. Anything you want - Spanish, Russian, Cantonese.”</p><p>She shouldn’t keep being so surprised by him. Of course he knew languages, a lot of languages. “I really should have realized he wasn’t training me to be a field agent. Learning how to wrestle isn’t the same as learning Russian and knife throwing and the names of edible plants.”</p><p>“How could you have known?” he said, squeezing her shoulder. “You were nineteen, Kate. What in your whole life could possibly have prepared you for him?”</p><p>It was peculiar how far away it was in this moment. Like the trees that ringed their little nest wove a protective spell over them. Like it was an entirely different universe they’d fallen into today, through the rabbit’s hole.</p><p>“I still think about - about that trainer I killed. I thought I was proving something, thought it had to be the last trial, and if I could do it, I’d passed his test. So I did it. I just - kept going. I didn’t pull up short, and I kicked his chin just like he taught me and it snapped his neck. That fast. He never saw it coming. Until the last moment, and I saw it flash across his face, how he knew it then. How stupid I was, thinking Black wanted me.”</p><p>“Oh, God,” Castle croaked. “I wish I’d - fuck. Gotten my fucking head out of my ass for one damn second. Just - God. If I’d known-”</p><p>“How could you have known?” she sighed, pressing her fingertips into the bare skin above his heart. “How on earth could a son think that about his father?”</p><p>Castle sucked in a ragged breath that Kate felt travel all through him. His hand gripped her shoulder. “You were there. You know how.”</p><p>“But... you were a boy too, Castle. Rick. You were a boy. A son. It’s the same excuse. The innocence of youth. If it works for me, then you have to take it as well.”</p><p>He growled under her chest, but she had come to like his growls, his constant outpouring of emotion through all these twitches and words and sounds. Like he needed a release valve for all of this. It was - strangely soothing.</p><p>“I don’t want you to... I want it all to not have happened to you,” he said finally. His voice was tight. “I know that’s stupid. I know it doesn’t change anything.” </p><p>“I know.” She slowly rubbed her thumb across his skin, pressed her lips to his shoulder. “But it’s sweet, Castle. I feel the same about - about a lot of it. And those were things I did. I killed that man. I murdered four people - no, five-”</p><p>“You did what you had to, Kate. You took action to change things. You didn’t just stand there and take it. You fought.”</p><p>She was being crushed by him, held so tightly against his chest by the strength of his arm. </p><p>Everything seemed far away from here. From this place. Five people were dead, but so much was alive. So much was still alive.</p><p>She pushed up from the ground and leaned in over him, softly kissed his frowning, fierce mouth.</p><p>So much was alive.</p><p>-----</p><p>They ate lunch side by side, a meandering feast, grapes and chicken and salad greens, water bottles he'd frozen to keep their food chilled now melting and cool. He'd had this plan to be suave and clever and romantic, even with the boys, but it had been shot to hell by James wanting to swim and Kate in the mud and crying. Not sexy whatsoever.</p><p>Though the mud...</p><p>She'd washed her hands and face in the lake before lunch, but she had smears down her legs and arms, she had crumbling handprints on her shirt, jeans rolled up and crusted. The boys slept hard, worn out by exposure to the new environment and a morning of play, and Kate had leaned back on her hands with her face tilted to the sun.</p><p>"You finished?" he asked, nodding to the remnants of her salad. She'd eaten the chicken out of it, the mandarin oranges and nuts too, and he'd seen her eat half their bag of grapes. </p><p>"Mm," she hummed, some kind of agreement. Her eyes were closed. She looked like a warrior, battle-borne, out the other side both scarred and smeared but content. A good war. Victorious.</p><p>He cleaned up their trash, being careful with the plastic, which he tried to use sparingly, all of that going back in the bag. He buried the salad remains in the fire pit they hadn't needed, and when everything was straightened up again, he glanced up to find Kate watching him.</p><p>"Hey," he said, wanting to touch her. "You want to sneak down to the lake with me?"</p><p>She glanced once to the boys, a head check that smoothly came back to him with a smile. "Yeah. I want to wash the mud off."</p><p>"Skinny dip," he murmured, not really a suggestion but still-</p><p>Her eyebrow went up, one corner of her mouth. "Skinny dip?"</p><p>"Naked."</p><p>She huffed. "I know what it is. I've skinny dipped before, Castle."</p><p>"You have?" His guts twisted, his skin tingling. "I haven't."</p><p>"You haven't?" Kate's mouth dropped open but then she shut it fast and laughed, shaking her head. "Right, well, come on then. We're skinny dipping for sure now."</p><p>She stood abruptly, her hand out to him as if he needed help getting up. He was stupidly charmed by it, and he took her hand, rising without aid but just the warmth of her palm to his. She was sun-licked, head to toe, standing in the middle of the lean-to, even as his own head touched the mosquito netting. She pushed it aside and stepped out, her hand still around his, as if leading him out.</p><p>He followed her winding path through the trees to the break where the sand began and the saplings thinned and the sun came dazzling over the water. On their left was the grove of deadwood and spruce that blended into the lake, and on their right was the natural cove of the land, the ridge they'd driven most of the way on. </p><p>She squeezed his hand at the lake's edge and they stopped where the water came dancing close to their feet. He was still barefoot, but she'd slipped her boat shoes back on when they'd trekked inland towards the lean-to for lunch. Now she toed them off and kicked them higher up the beach, released his hand to reach for the hem of her shirt.</p><p>It came right up and over, and his heart stopped at the black lace below, the see-through lace with the triangle lace panels that would come peeling down with a flick of his fingers.</p><p>Ah, fuck. She had worn that on purpose. </p><p>"Don't worry, Castle." She pushed her thumbs into the waist of her jeans, hips shimmying. "Since you're a skinny dip virgin, I'll go slow."</p><p>-----</p><p>She took his shirt off of him. </p><p>He was just standing there a little dumbstruck, entirely turned on, and she sashayed up to him and tugged his t-shirt up, fingers gathering the material, whisper soft against his skin. He had to work to keep his knees locked, work to breathe normally, and she gave him these enigmatic little smiles as she lifted his shirt.</p><p>He had to help, had to raise his arms and duck his head and let her pull the shirt inside out over his head. She let the shirt dangle from her fingers before dropping it on top of the pile of her clothes, her hair in a soft fall over her jaw and throat and collarbones.</p><p>He reached out and touched the promontory of her clavicle, traced the short strip of skin to where her bra strap rested. Kate's fingers came to his pants and began unbuttoning, and he slipped the strap off her shoulder. Distracted by her grip on his pants, he left his hand cupping her shoulder, the strap hamstringing her arm even as she teased a line down his cock.</p><p>"Don't stop now," she murmured, so close the heat of her hips tantalized him. "You were doing so well, Castle."</p><p>He sucked in a breath and focused, blinking through the haze of his lust, and gripped her arms, pushed both straps down. She was laughing at him, or maybe purring, and he stepped into her to draw his arms around her torso, his fingers catching at the clasp of her bra.</p><p>"The front, sweetheart," she murmured. Her lips brushing his ear so that he shuddered. "It's in the front."</p><p>He groaned and skimmed his hands back around, unwilling to step away, fumbled between them until he found that hot, sweet spot between her breasts. "I love this bra," he mumbled. "Love these." He skimmed his thumbs around the see-through lace of the cup, gasped when his thumbs tucked under the flap and burned electric across her bare skin. "Love these."</p><p>She laughed again, though he thought she was just as breathless, her hips shifting within and against his. "These being the triangle flaps or my breasts?"</p><p>"Yes," he said, reverently and fully aware now. So completely aware. Every brush of her skin, how cool her hands were as she eased his pants off his hips, the way her chin bumped his jaw as she angled her head to look. So aware. He wanted to slide his fingers inside her and play until she came for him.</p><p>She scratched her nails lightly along his boxer-clad ass and tugged on the material, peeling the briefs down his thighs. He had to stop playing with her bra and really help, popping open the front clasp and leaving her in dishabille, her hair wild around her face from water and sun and wind.</p><p>She kissed him.</p><p>She kissed him and it was somehow so unexpected that he whined into her withdrawal, eyes sliding open. Her lips were quirked and she eased down, bringing his boxers down with her, and he watched the pale slash of her back in the harsh sunlight, the so-white skin and the faint pink blush, the yellow shadows.</p><p>She rose to full height once more, and he was enamored of the sway of her breasts, reached out to cup them, capturing them in his hands like juicy apples. Kate's eyelashes fluttered to her cheeks before lifting on a glance so inviting he groaned and dragged her against him.</p><p>Chest to chest, her nipples hard points against his ribs, her arms wrapping around him even as he hugged her harder. Hard. All the feeling him needed release, and the fierceness of his grip seemed the only way to get it.</p><p>She tongued his neck and he yelped, overtaken by the sinuous writhe of her body against his as she freed herself. He groaned a curse as she slid her panties down, reached out and grabbed her by the hips to pull her back against him. "Wanted to do that."</p><p>"Snooze, you loose, Rick Castle."</p><p>"What about finder's keepers?" he husked, delighting in the shiver that chased down her spine. He smoothed his fingers at the high round globe of her ass, nudged between her legs to find out. "Oh, baby, definitely keeping you. How wet you are for me."</p><p>"Seems like always," she rasped, her lips restless against his neck. "Always wet for you."</p><p>"Fuck," he growled, batting at the material of her panties until they fell, putting his foot on the fabric and lifting her off her feet to free her. She gave a caught-breath laugh and wrapped her legs around his waist, leaning back with her arms hooked around his neck.</p><p>He ripped the bra from her, tangling them both up before he could find his control, and then he tossed it on the pile, bringing her back against his chest. She came easily, snuggling right up to him, arms pressed against his back and his head, as if she would lose him if she didn't keep a tight hold.</p><p>He hummed into the crease of her neck, bared his teeth to scrape at her skin. She yelped and he suckled at the spot, kissing until he tasted the iron in her blood. She was breathing his name and squirming, and they weren't even close to the skinny dipping part.</p><p>Castle lifted his head, fighting the urge to shift her just enough to push his way inside, fighting it hard.</p><p>Kate crooked her elbow and traced her fingers at his eyebrow, watching him, studying him. "Easier in the water," she murmured, squeezing her thighs around him. "Little more buoyant."</p><p>"You've done this," he said back softly, a little awed, a lot curious.</p><p>"Mm, told you I had."</p><p>"I mean you know logistics," he said, raising both eyebrows and wriggling them. </p><p>She giggled and dropped her forehead to his shoulder. "Are we really gonna compare?"</p><p>"I wanna know, I'd like to know everything - how did he do it?"</p><p>"He didn't do anything," she muttered, her nose wrinkling against his cheek. "I did all the work. There was some touching, but mostly I gave him - you know - a hand job."</p><p>"Did you get one?"</p><p>Her cheeks went pink and she rolled her eyes. "No. Not - Castle, boys have no idea what's going on down there."</p><p>He laughed, completely delighted by the idea of boys taking one look at Kate Beckett, having her hands on them, and whiting out until it was long over. "Well, allow me to make up for all the ignorant, foolish boys."</p><p>She arched against him, humming. "Please do."</p><p>So Castle walked her right into the lake.</p><p>-----</p><p>Oh, it felt so good. He felt so good. The water licking at her neck as he held her down, submerged in the deep dark lake, his fingers licking at her, there, just there, as she rolled against his hand.</p><p>"How's that, baby?" he murmured at her ear. </p><p>The water sloshed over her shoulders and between her legs, a current of cool heat that zipped up her spine and made her groan.</p><p>"You like that," he hummed. His mouth touched the corner of her eye, his tongue against the wet corner so that it stung. Her body tightened around his fingers. "You make that noise when I touch you here."</p><p>She mewled into it, felt the fluttering start in her belly. She knew that feeling now, knew what it meant, and her legs tightened, crushing his hand between them.</p><p>"I got you, got you, steady, love." His fingers against her, stroking deep inside her, the movement as he stretched that narrow place, filled her. </p><p>She moaned as the water eddied around her, the cool lick at her breasts, the heat of his mouth on hers. He swallowed her sounds, one strong arm around her and holding her up in the water. Every movement had its repercussions, every rock of her body thrilled along her nerve endings.</p><p>She was so raw there, so open and clutching after so long without, so long never having, and now she had, she had, and it was never going to be enough.</p><p>"Come for me, sweetheart. Let it fall over you. You can do it."</p><p>She whined, hips a little less easy, a little more frantic, clutched the back of his neck as she dragged herself closer. Breasts crushed to his chest, the friction of dry against wet almost pain. She needed something harder, something more urgent, something-</p><p>His thumb caught her and she cried out, stiffening, a fire bursting between her legs.</p><p>He rubbed hard and she came apart, the water trembling around her, her body locked around his, everything going up in the blaze.</p><p>And then the cool cool water between her legs. The cool cool water teasing her nipples and the underside of her breasts and now her lips as she sank into him.</p><p>-----</p><p>They played tag in the drowned forest until they were too tired to swim any longer. Castle found  a spot on an underwater shelf, some kind of stone outcropping that might actually have been the trunk of a great deadwood, petrified by the years. Kate sat on his thighs, her back to his chest, her head tilted against his shoulder, face to the sky.</p><p>“What was your favorite?” she was asking him. Their fingers tangled together, in and out, threading, as she nestled herself closer. A current would make her drift and she’d come wriggling back to him, her ass caressing his groin.</p><p>He had his fifth erection of the day, but he thought he could use a little anticipation himself. Coming twice in the water had been erotic, and new, and he really loved how close she got, her body wet and slick and moving against his as she ‘did all the work’, but he also really loved making himself wait for it.</p><p>“Castle,” she nudged.</p><p>“Oh, right, my favorite. Sorry, love, getting distracted by your ass. Perfectly shaped.” He pinched her flank and she yelped, laughing as she still nudged back into him.</p><p>“Stop stalling. Answer the question.”</p><p>“My favorite,” he murmured. He couldn’t answer it entirely truthfully because he knew if he said all of them she wouldn’t believe him. She would think he was using a line or being charming and then that would devalue everything he said in the future.</p><p>“Cassstle,” she whined. “Tell me. I wanna know.”</p><p>“I can’t narrow it down to just one. Can we say top ten?”</p><p>“Ten?” she muttered, turning to nudge her chin into his. “Have we even done it ten times?”</p><p>“Mm, well, I’m counting the times you made me come, which you might not have meant, but those moments stand out quite vividly.”</p><p>She bit his earlobe and he grunted, but really he loved that too, loved the sting and the cool lick of her tongue.</p><p>“The first time,” he said, wanting her to know. </p><p>“The first time you came? Was that-”</p><p>“No,” he said quickly. In contrast, he dragged his fingers slowly over her hip and up to her breast. “The first time I tasted your milk.”</p><p>“Oh, well,” she said airily, but he heard her breathlessness in it anyway.</p><p>“When I held the boys while they nursed and I - touched you. You let me touch you here, like this.” He mimicked that skimming glide of his fingers at the top of her breast.</p><p>“And then,” she murmured, lifting her dripping hand from the water and closing over his. She guided his fingers down to her areola, and he remembered exactly the light circles he’d made then as he did now.</p><p>He cupped her breast as he had then, though the weight was different in the water, and he smoothed a slow circumference around her nipple.</p><p>“Yeah, that,” she sighed. She wasn’t exactly worked up, but he could feel the little tremors through her body. “And you kissed me, remember?”</p><p>“I remember,” he said, still holding off. “Of course I remember. I told you, this is in my top ten.”</p><p>“Five.”</p><p>“Ten.”</p><p>“We couldn’t possibly have had ten-”</p><p>“Encounters? We have. I have with you. You have with me. You don’t remember?”</p><p>She huffed, but it made her breast fill his hand and he rewarded her with a flick of his thumb across her nipple. He could see the way her lips curved in a smile, her eyes closed tightly against the sunlight.</p><p>“You remember,” he murmured.</p><p>“I remember, but they’re not - they were just - we just had to... get off.”</p><p>“You didn’t get off,” he muttered. “Not until today.”</p><p>“Yesterday.”</p><p>“Twenty-four hours.”</p><p>“Still felt like it,” she said. Her voice was light, as if teasing, but he felt the ripple of tension through her back as she spoke. She wasn’t teasing. There was honesty to her statement she wasn’t entirely comfortable with.</p><p>“Felt like you had to get off,” he echoed. “No, honey, it was more than that. There was something - there is something about you. About us touching each other. Every time is - special. That sounds stupid. But I mean... like a gift. I never thought - I’ve never...”</p><p>He didn’t know what to say. For the first time, he didn’t have the words for it. For what this meant to him - words to say the truth without spooking her.</p><p>“You’ve never?” she said, hesitating.</p><p>“I’ve never,” he finished. A sigh.</p><p>“Been skinny dipping.”</p><p>His lips quirked. “Never wanted to touch someone all the time.”</p><p>She chuckled, though it sounded relieved. “Never...?”</p><p>“Wanted someone so much all the time. Felt so much at the having. Never - never cried into a woman’s neck for feeling so much.”</p><p>Her arm lifted and snaked back around his neck, not tightly, just there, and her fingers played at his nape. “Is it bad to say... it’s romantic?”</p><p>“It’s... what?”</p><p>“I... it’s sweet. I’ve never - ha - I’ve never had someone cry on me before.”</p><p>“You’re making fun-”</p><p>“No, no,” she spoke up, sliding around in his lap and nudging her breasts against his chest. “Not making fun, baby. I - I just - you trust me.” She blinked and sank back to his knees, her mouth dropping open. “You trust me?”</p><p>“I trust you,” he said, though he wasn’t sure why that was a surprise. “Of course I trust you. You wouldn’t be sitting on my cock if I didn’t trust you.” He laughed but she still looked like he’d hit her over the head with some big revelation.</p><p>“I can’t believe it.”</p><p>“Believe what? It’ll calm down. I hope. I think it will so long as you stop squirming around like that and looking so damn hot.”</p><p>“I can’t believe you just trust me without even knowing-”</p><p>“I know you,” he said harshly, cutting her off. “Don’t even.”</p><p>“Knowing what I might do. I could just-”</p><p>“Kate,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Just because there are things going on doesn’t mean I don’t or shouldn’t trust you.”</p><p>“But that’s ridiculous. That’s dangerous-”</p><p>“No,” he growled. “It’s not. You know why? Because the world I live in requires exactly the kind of ballsy, warrior shit you can actually do. I have enemies, Kate. I have assassinated more people than I care to remember, and I have put my face, my ghost, my alias as the number one enemy of eight or ten countries. And now I have twin sons who need a mother who can fucking take it.”</p><p>Her mouth closed. She stared at him.</p><p>He swallowed roughly and shook his head. “My life is high-risk, hazardous, and unprotected, and it’s made me paranoid and deadly. But you - the first time I met you, Kate, you were soaked in the blood of the one man who has been the most dangerous to my sanity, my humanity. And then you.” He touched the side of her face gently. “And then you. All of my self, my soul...”</p><p>She closed her eyes, opened them again. He had no idea what she was thinking. Didn’t matter. She wouldn’t change his mind. He knew.</p><p>“You saved my life,” he said, drawing his arm around her neck, tugging her back to him. “You saved my life, Kate.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Saved his life. It seemed fantastical. Abstract. And yet here he was, wrapped around her like she'd longed to do to him when he had ushered her out of the facility carrying those boys and put her in the car. To just hold on.</p><p>She had always thought of Black as the mean neighborhood bully with his magnifying glass and her the ant below, crisped and twitching. And had some careful, observant boy come along with a stick and poked, she'd have scrambled right up, no matter who held the other end, just to get out from under that burning gaze. She would have clung to anything, no matter the cost, because it was infinitely better than the hell she'd been in.</p><p>How lucky, how preciously lucky that he'd been the one on the other end of hell. And yet here he was, telling her she'd been the same for him, and it didn't make sense. It didn't fit together.</p><p>But the way he held her together, the way he touched her, teased, cajoled, gentled, carried.</p><p>Carried.</p><p>The way he carried her woundedness like it was no effort at all, even as she struggled and wrestled against it, with it, mired in it. He picked it up like a fallen bird in his cupped hands, speaking tender words, soothing.</p><p>"Are you cold?" he whispered. His fingers trailed water down the bare ridge of her spine. "Goosebumps."</p><p>"No." And yet shivering. She crowded into his body, certain it would be gone in the next moment, a dream. "No. No."</p><p>"Want to get out? Lie in the sun and dry off."</p><p>She didn't want to get out. She didn't want to leave this. But it would be over, everything ended. "Okay."</p><p>He hesitated, his arms around her to pick her up even though she could swim just fine, though she wasn't protesting, and he wasn't moving. "In a minute maybe?"</p><p>"Yes," she said. "In a minute."</p><p>His hand came to the back of her head and then his awkward fingers combed through her tangled hair. "I know I... say too much. But don't ever think you have to say - or be - anything more than you are right now. Not for me, not for pretty words I put in your ear."</p><p>"Pretty words," she mumbled, closing her eyes, "are never true."</p><p>"Oh, they're true," he whispered. "But they're without strings, honey." His chest expanded with a long breath and then as he exhaled, the words left him too. "I've spent my life strangled like that. I won't have it for us, for you, never mind us. Us is a string, I guess. Our sons, strings-"</p><p>"Good ones." She tightened her arms around him.</p><p>"Good ones," he choked, nodding against her. "Yeah, okay, you're right." He had another breath, this one more stumbling. "There are good conditions, there are right things which constrain us. I..."</p><p>She pulled her knees up, brushing his sides, scaling his ribs as she tried to fight the water's buoyancy and crowd closer to him. </p><p>His fingers combed her hair straight down her back and his breath left him. "I don't want to be something that constrains you. Even if we - when we-" He growled and his forehead dipped to her shoulder. "I won't constrain you, Kate. I won't be like - no. No cage, no matter how much it's of our own making, no matter how many vows we give each other. If you have to go, you just go. Okay? Promise me, promise me that you won't let me cage you. Promise me-"</p><p>"A promise is a cage," she croaked out.</p><p>"No," he hissed, arms banding tighter, entirely in contradiction the words he spoke. "No. It's - it's a mutual understanding. We both understand. No cage. I won't keep you."</p><p>And yet his body encompassed hers. Surrounded. And yet the feeling that washed over her was of being on the top of a great height and knowing she was going to fall, inevitable, inexorable. Fall to her death.</p><p>"What if... what if being kept is all I'm good for?"</p><p>He groaned into her neck, and she felt him shaking, the water around them trembling with the force of it.</p><p>"You are so much more-" He cut off and yet his grip tightened, tightened, pulling the noose of him around her neck. "There will be a day. Maybe it's not soon, and maybe I don't want it to ever really come. I'm selfish and I - but it'll come. And you'll know. And you'll - if you have to leave. That's what I'm saying. If you have to get out of even the most beautiful cage I could possibly make of - if you can't do it another day, then you remember this moment. Remember that I said I never wanted the good constraints to be a restraint. Remember."</p><p>She wound her arm around his neck and curled tighter into herself, knees up at her chin, a little floating ball anchored only by whatever grip he could maintain.</p><p>He talked like when the day would come, she'd be alive to see it. Alive and with him, bound to him. He talked like he saw it so clearly, detail for detail, like he saw her future in the leaves overhead and the water in its mysterious eddies. Like he knew her, knew she had to go.</p><p>But, for all she tried, she couldn't find that same picture in her head. The future was a blank nothing, a void, and even if she had a later to remember this day, the things she remembered would be the press of his arms around her, weighing her down to him, keeping her from drifting off.</p><p>-----</p><p>They crawled up out of the water and laid on the rocks, letting the sun heat their skins and dry them off. Castle had his eyes closed, naked, in that strange state of damp skin and sunlight and quiet. He had done this before, stripped naked and gone swimming and then sun-dried, and so it was familiar, lying here on a rock, but never with another person at his side.</p><p>So the silence was normal and even lulling in its comfort, but then Kate would shift on the rock or let out a breath and the world would rush in, jarringly, and he’d remember: she’s here.</p><p>After a few minutes, his hair still damp, he felt her fingers touched his knuckles and then slide over, settle into his palm. Not quite squeezing, just there, and he held her hand, side by side on a glacial rock, warmed by the sun, the sky a stark blue overhead.</p><p>It felt like a gift.</p><p>He honored it with silence for another long moment, and then he couldn’t help asking. “What’s your favorite memory of her?”</p><p>She barely twitched. Only a little flick of her thumb against the back of his hand. “Going in to the office with her. Work. I can still see her sitting behind her desk with a stack of law library books, her glasses pushed up on top of her head because they were for reading, looking at me over a pile of paperwork, a brief she was writing, I’m sure. Find something to do, she’d say to me, and I’d wander through the offices on Saturday, or maybe I was home sick from school, and it was always busy. I wanted to be a lawyer just like her.”</p><p>“Always busy, even on a Saturday?”</p><p>“She wasn’t a workaholic,” Kate offered, her thumb tracing over his knuckles. “She’d only go in for a couple hours, then take me home on the subway. We’d sit side by side usually, on that line, that time of day, and I remember how she smelled - like books and paper and that so-faint scent of magnolia. Her perfume.”</p><p>“Good smell.”</p><p>“Good smell,” she sighed. “Perfect smell. And my dad is Old Spice. Was. He had Old Spice everything, aftershave, deodorant, all of it. My mom always called him an old man because of it. Hey, old man, and she’d kiss his cheek where he always missed shaving.”</p><p>“Ah.” His chest was heavy with the weight of her words, the gift of these stories. “They really loved each other.”</p><p>“Sure, I think so. Of course, I’m biased - what can a kid really know? But they were best friends, had been before and then - and it showed, you know? They enjoyed each other’s company. They were always comfortable. One took up the other’s slack. Independent, both of them, but they knew how to work together. I think I was an accident.”</p><p>“What?” he startled, trying not laugh. Her hand squeezed around his in permission and then he did, chuckling at her non-sequitor.</p><p>“I don’t think they intended to have kids. My mother was very ambitious, and my dad worked like a dog. When I was born, I remember him saying, he had to take off work because Mom was up for partner already. He was the one who took care of me, stayed home on paternity leave. He was actually one of the first in New York to get leave for it. Because of me.”</p><p>“Your mom was ambitious. How so?”</p><p>“She was on this - mission. Wrongful convictions. Guys who got railroaded because the cops wanted an easy solve, or because they’d been tried in the court of public opinion.”</p><p>“That wouldn’t have made her very popular.”</p><p>“No.” A snort from Kate. “She was murdered, Castle. No. She wasn’t popular. But I worshipped the ground she walked on. I thought she was perfect.”</p><p>“You wanted to be just like her.”</p><p>“I wanted to be better than her. I was gonna be a Supreme Court Justice.”</p><p>“Damn. Talk about ambition. How long would it take to get you there?”</p><p>“Decades,” she murmured. Her fingers twitched around his. “Too late-”</p><p>“Not really,” he jumped in, planning ahead. Plotting it out. “You could take the pre-reqs now, get those out of the way with what they call long-distance learning. It’s basically all online. Those Gen Eds don’t matter, really, and you could come into a program with a 4.0 - easy. We’d set you up so that it looked like you dropped out of Stanford when you got pregnant, or got married, whatever you wanted it to say, and now you’re looking to finish it up.”</p><p>“Law school is cutthroat. I can’t just get pre-reqs online. They’d never accept me. Competition is fierce.”</p><p>“But I bet your transcript would be fucking impressive when you factor in a year of military intelligence training and two years in the service. All classified work, of course.”</p><p>She grunted something inelegant and yet clumsy, as if fuck wasn’t at home in her mouth. It was kind of adorable, and he knew that wouldn’t be okay with her.</p><p>“Castle,” she huffed. “I don’t even know that I want to do any of that. Lawyer was my mom. That was her dream, so it was mine too. I can’t - there’s not a chance now. That’s not me any longer. And she’s gone. That’s all gone.”</p><p>The grief in her voice was so thick that he tried to bulldoze right past it. “Okay, no lawyer, but we should look into online colleges for Gen Eds-”</p><p>“No, Castle.”</p><p>No. “Okay. Well. Forget online. I thought you’d want to lay low for a year, get a handle on - uh - the boys-” (her whole fucking life) “-and just - but, yeah, okay. Just dive right into it. Might as well. Back to Stanford?” Misery, abject misery, so far away from him, but maybe he’d teleconference, maybe he’d make Orange County the headquarters of the national CIA offices. The Director would do it. “Or, you know, if you’re looking for-”</p><p>“Castle.”</p><p>He risked a look at her. She had one eye cracked open, a baleful expression on her face.</p><p>When she saw him looking, she reached over and twisted his ear. “Shut up, Castle. I have no idea what tomorrow looks like, let alone a year from now. Don’t make plans for a future that doesn’t exist.”</p><p>He rubbed his ear. “It exists. You might not want to look at it, or maybe you can’t. But it’s there. I’m gonna get us there, Kate, all of us. You don’t have to do or plan anything, you just have to do today. Do today, and I can do everything else.”</p><p>Kate suddenly rolled over into him, pressing her wet body to his. Her breasts were cool against his chest, and her grin was a little bit wicked. “I can do today. So long as you’re doing me.”</p><p>He laughed, more of an incredulous snort than anything else really, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Teased his fingers down her spine to her ass. “Lame, Beckett. Worst smarmy pick-up line ever.”</p><p>“And yet,” she hummed, arching back into his caress. “Here you are. Entirely willing.”</p><p>He found the wet place between her legs, the slick heat of her. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for the kind of woman who pops my skinny-dipping cherry.”</p><p>-----</p><p>She was stretched out against a sun-baked rock, skin overheated and hair kinking, and coming apart around his mouth.</p><p>Oh, God.</p><p>She rode up and up, the tight licks of flame that stroked against her clit. His tongue. Just his tongue and she was falling to pieces, complete undone.</p><p>She gasped and opened her eyes to the world, the sky crashing down on her head.</p><p>Castle hummed against her sex and rubbed a rough cheek against her inside thigh, crawling up her body. His mouth touched her belly button, her sternum, licked lazily at her breast, and his heat was both shading her from the oppressive sun and also burning her up where they touched.</p><p>“You’re sexy in the sunlight, moaning as you come.” A dirty kiss to her mouth, his tongue frenching hers just like he’d done below. Tasted like musk and salt. Tasted like sweet milk and bitter almonds. Poison and pleasure.</p><p>She wound her fingers in his hair, stroking, urging her body up against his for more of his heat and weight.</p><p>His teeth nipped as he hovered over her. “Tonight, I’ll make you scream. Make you hoarse with fucking.”</p><p>“God, please,” she moaned. Her inner muscles clenched around nothing, desperate again.</p><p>“A little preview,” he growled from above. His elbow dug into the rock so that she could hear his bone crunching. His free hand dragged heavily down her belly and between her legs, immediately finding her. “A little glimpse of tonight.”</p><p>His fingers pushed inside her, thick, widening her up. She gasped, arm constricting around his neck, her neck arched so far back that her breath was gone. </p><p>“Only two fingers, and look how you writhe for me.”</p><p>“Harder,” she gasped.</p><p>“Gotta stretch you first, baby. Can’t just shove it inside, not at first. Else you won’t be able to fuck tomorrow. Too sore.”</p><p>“Please-”</p><p>“Much as I like the idea of you being too fucked to walk in the morning, so that we can stay in bed all day,” -his voice was lighting her on fire- “I wouldn’t be able to touch you again without that rawness making it hurt.”</p><p>“I like the hurt, I like raw, please-”</p><p>“Two is enough for now. Feel how slick you are, how I glide right inside? I’ll do that tonight, baby, drag enough climaxed out of you that you’ll fall open for me.”</p><p>“Castle, Castle-”</p><p>“You’ll have that wide, gaping mouth down here, where it’s swollen and wet. I’ll be able to work three fingers, and you’ll feel full, so tight and full, and I’ll widen you up for me, make sure you can take me.”</p><p>She groaned, writhing up against him, aching for him. A fist, make a fist and push it deep-</p><p>“No, baby, not a fist. Though your eagerness has me hard. Come here, feel this, how much I want you, how much I’m torturing myself telling you stories about what happens tonight.”</p><p>The heat of his erection laid heavy and throbbing on her thigh, and his hand came over hers and closed her around it. “Oh, God, you’re huge. You’ll never fit. You’ll have to make me-”</p><p>“I’ll fit,” he hushed. “I’ll show you tonight how it fits. Tight, snug, but the more you weep for me here-” His thumb flicked her clit and she mewled. “-the more you’ll take.”</p><p>“All, all, I want everything,” she sobbed.</p><p>“You’ll have it, baby. I’ll make sure you have everything.”</p><p>“Then please make me come, please, I need to come again, I need to come.”</p><p>His fingers curled deep inside her and she screamed, clamped down around his intrusion, milking and milking it until exhaustion dropped her like a stone.</p><p>-----</p><p>When she came to herself, that lazy, loose-lipped smile and her eyes sparking with sunlight, he saw that slow awareness blossom on her face. Pink and full and velvety. Her hand lifted to his face and touched the corner of his eye, dipping over his cheek to his lips.</p><p>He kissed her, but she kept going, scratching under his jaw and down his throat. “Let me,” she husked, dragging her hand between them. “My turn now.”</p><p>“I think you just had your turn. Thoroughly.”</p><p>“My turn to make you,” she said, pushing up against him. He sank back to one elbow, and she sat up, gesturing for him to come with her. So he did, lifting upright, his ass against the rock, and she nudged him forward, one of her knees pressing into his spine.</p><p>“What’re you doing?” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her. </p><p>Kate gestured for him to turn around, and he did, faintly amused by her silent instruction, and the seriousness on her face. When he had his arms clasped loosely over his drawn up knees, staring out at the lake, waiting on her, she finally made her move.</p><p>She slid her legs around to bracket his hips, her ankles at the backs of his thighs. He felt her palms press to his back, rubbing up and down along his spine, and her touch was electric. He felt his eyes slip closed, and her lips touched his back.</p><p>“Kate.”</p><p>“My turn,” she hushed. Same tone, he realized faintly, as he’d used on her earlier when he’d told her he would fit just fine. Leave it to me, it seemed to say. I’ve got this.</p><p>“Kate, I-”</p><p>“Hush, love, I’m working on it.”</p><p>His cheeks flamed, the hot burn of lust racing under his skin. She did things to him; he couldn’t control it, how she made him feel, how just the sound of her contentment and - and predatory satisfaction had his balls tightening and his heart flipping. Both school boy and teenage boy, and he had to just grit his teeth through it and hope for the best.</p><p>Kate kissed his spine, wet touches of her lips and tongue, as if she was making love to skin. Lewd kisses. A lick over the knobs of his vertebrae, the scrape of her teeth gnawing on him, the suckle of her mouth. His skin felt too tight over his bones, his flesh encasing the bursting heat of his lust.</p><p>“Baby,” he growled. “Fuck. Your mouth is...”</p><p>She didn’t stop, and now her hands were cool, light touches against his ribs and tracing up to his sternum. He was trying not to shake, his arms hooked around his knees and his head bowed forward, unable to hold himself up. Her feet seemed to arch and flex, digging into the backs of his thighs, closer and closer to the turgid feeling between his legs.</p><p>Thick. Roiling. Thundering for her. So fucking eager for her touch that it took everything in him not to grab her by the wrists and force her hands on him.</p><p>And then her fingers, those chilled and lovely and light fingers, trailed down to his navel and circled, circled, circled.</p><p>“Kate,” he moaned.</p><p>She suckled at the wing of his shoulder blade as he squirmed, working his bones under his skin, against her teeth and tongue, grinding his teeth and breathing hard.</p><p>“You taste like the lake, like sunlight on the lake,” she murmured. Her hair brushed his back and made his skin tighten, his cock throb. “And you smell like... sex.”</p><p>“Fuck,” he harshed, his vision blazing overbright, the white on the water and the white of her body behind him, pressed to his, hands so close.</p><p>“I love the smell of you,” she husked. Her nose nuzzled into the crease of his shoulder where his arm met his torso, nearly at his armpit. She licked the slope of his tricep and up to his trapezius, and he was shaking violently.</p><p>“Kate, please. Please, love.”</p><p>Her palms flattened against his abs and skirted down, the backs of her hands brushing intimately against his inside thighs where he’d drawn his knees up. And then she took hold of him.</p><p>“Oh, God,” he moaned. “Oh, fuck. Please. Kate. Kate.”</p><p>“It’s okay, you’re okay. You can take it.”</p><p>“I don’t know,” he babbled. His arms lost their tension and his legs dropped open, cradled by her own legs, burning skin to skin. She was stroking him from behind, her grip fierce and firm. “I don’t know if I can. I can’t take it. I can’t-”</p><p>“You can, you will. It’s so good, baby, and you know you want it.”</p><p>“Ah, fuck, fuck,” he moaned, bowing forward, heaving breath. His cock was throbbing viciously, alive and angry, her hands were cool tipped fire, drawing out his need to an intensity he’d never felt before.</p><p>“Do you pull hard on yourself? When you’re doing it. When you need relief.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he croaked.</p><p>She hummed and it shook through his chest. Her hands started to stroke, one after another,  a hard grip that dragged down the length of him only for her other hand to squeeze tightly at his base and repeat the first. Stemming his imminent release every time, strangling his cock. </p><p>Her lips brushed his shoulder. “What do you think about, Castle?”</p><p>“You,” he moaned.</p><p>“You haven’t touched yourself since you met me, Rick. What did you used to think about?”</p><p>“Someone, fuck, oh, fuck, Kate, someone - you. Like you. Hot. Wanted me. Wanted to have me, fuck. Oh, please.”</p><p>She scored his back with her teeth and he bucked his hips into her stroke, feeling his balls drawing up, contracting hard.</p><p>Kate reached down and fondled his sac, the underside of his shaft, and he shouted as his orgasm ripped through him, pumping his come from his balls and tearing it out of his cock, thick ropes of burning release, endless, endless, her body pressed against him and rubbing, erotic and hot, and it seemed it would never end, never, and then he was tilting hard to one side and collapsing over her open thigh.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kate stroked up his side and curled her body around his on the flat rock, the sun beating down on them both, sweat running slick between their skins. She was floored by how floored he was, found herself as shaky and breathless as Castle when it was all done.</p><p>Done for now. It had grown hot, middle of the afternoon in the summer, and she was drained by the effort of sex and sweat and swimming, and it was so perfect draped over his back and side like this. </p><p>She kissed his ear, scratching her nails over his scalp, the short hair like velvet under her hand. He groaned and rolled off her flattened knee, but he laid his hand on her inside thigh and kissed her shin which seemed like it was mostly convenient, close.</p><p>Kate leaned over him, shielding his face from the sun, dragging her fingers behind his hear and back through his hair. Bristling hair, a little longer on top so that it stuck up and flopped over his forehead. She kissed his mouth and he opened for her, drugged, lazy admittance, and she followed his tone, going slowly with her tongue.</p><p>After a while, he brought her down against his chest, his heavy palm to the back of her head so that she laid her cheek against his shoulder. She could hear his heart thumping, slow but strong, and her body melted like liquid against his. </p><p>"You're hot," she murmured.</p><p>"Thank you."</p><p>She snorted and curled her arm in, flicked his ear. "Temperature hot, jackass."</p><p>He laughed, apparently amused by her name calling. "Mm, I think that's actually true most times. My core temp is higher than average."</p><p>"Oh?"</p><p>"Around 99. Which is only a few tenths off, I know, but I think it makes a difference. Metabolism rate is jacked up pretty high, so that's probably the reason."</p><p>"Are you telling me you can eat french fries and pizza all damn day and not gain a pound, and yet you eat like a feral cat?"</p><p>"A feral cat?" he said lightly, and his amusement was quite appealing. Made her skin tingle, how he regarded her a little differently whenever she made him laugh. "Though, yes, I suppose I sam saying that."</p><p>"I kind of hate you."</p><p>"Ice cream, pizza, a whole candy bar. Milkshakes-"</p><p>"I completely and totally hate you."</p><p>He laughed again and nuzzled his nose into her hair; she could feel him inhaling her. Creepy bastard.</p><p>"Was that your subtle way of telling me you're roasting out here in the sun?" he murmured.</p><p>"Do I smell roasting?" she answered, wrinkling her nose.</p><p>He laughed again, and it was beginning to be a thing, and she really liked it. She really liked making him laugh. As opposed to crying.</p><p>"You smell just fine," he said easily, stroking two fingers down her spine. "Sweat-sun-salt. My new favorite smell."</p><p>"Oh, uh-huh. Totally attractive, Castle."</p><p>"It is. Maybe just 'cause it's you. Because it's reminiscent of how you taste."</p><p>She flushed and pushed off his chest, narrowing her eyes down at him. He was grinning, entirely too clever, but before she could retaliate, he frowned and cupped her shoulders. </p><p>"You're beginning to burn, love. Sunblock has washed off. We should go."</p><p>She deflated, not wanting to go anywhere, but Castle slid his hand down to her ass and he lightly spanked her.</p><p>"Don't want to burn your ass, baby. I have plans for tonight."</p><p>"Well, hell," she croaked, and she had to have him help her to her feet, entirely dissolved like she was.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle brushed his hands over her mud-stained ass; she threw him a look over her shoulder, elbowing him away. He grinned and kissed her cheek, nuzzling in against her neck even as the boys pushed between their legs.</p><p>“You look thoroughly debauched,” he murmured.</p><p>She laughed, shoving him off. “You idiot. I fell in the mud with Wyatt. Or he fell. One of us.”</p><p>“Looks like I rolled you in it.”</p><p>She rolled her eyes, but he could see the heat flare up in her cheeks. “I wish. You keep refusing to debauch me.”</p><p>“Anticipation, baby. Makes it all the more intense.”</p><p>“Like you’ve ever not had sex when the opportunity presented itself,” she snorted, leaning over to pick up one of the boys.</p><p>Castle snagged James out of her arms, catching her by the elbow so that her eyes snapped up to his. “Don’t bet on that, Beckett. In my job, sex is mostly worthless. I’m an assassin, not a fucking James Bond.”</p><p>She blinked, but at least her gaze didn’t break from his. At least she didn’t turn her head from him, shut her eyes to it.</p><p>He eased his grip on her arm and shifted James on his hip. Wyatt was still hanging on to his legs, pushing his head between Castle’s calves like a goofball. He glanced down and brushed his hand over Wyatt’s head, made the boy look up.</p><p>“What’re you doing there, kid?”</p><p>“Hi, Daddy.”</p><p>“Well, fuck,” Castle breathed. He squatted down, carefully untangling Wyatt from his legs, hanging on to James. “Hi, there, Wyatt.” He glanced up to Kate to share the moment, found her coming to her knees beside them in the hunting blind. “You hear that?”</p><p>“I heard,” she said softly. “He’s fast. Wyatt, you want to go in the Jeep? Help Daddy pick up the rest of the picnic.”</p><p>“Eep!”</p><p>“That’s right. Can you help?” Castle told him, tugging the bag closer. Kate seemed to be thinking about what he’d said, digesting it, and he didn’t want to push if she wasn’t ready to hear it. Tonight was about more than sex, and even if she didn’t want it to be true, it was for her too. “James, you help Wyatt with the blanket.”</p><p>The boys seemed to understand instruction just fine, and they were doing a rather impressive job of teamwork, bundling up the blanket as best they could between them. Castle hurriedly shoved the rest of their picnic into the bag, gathering his laptop and the files that he hadn’t even gotten a chance to look at.</p><p>He hadn’t expected to have so much fun. To play. But they really had. Even without the kids, asleep after lunch, he and Kate had found ways to connect with each other. Not just the sex.</p><p>It was more than sex; she had to know that. No matter what she told herself to get by, she had to know.</p><p>“But... you have experience,” she said quietly, leaning against one wall of the blind. “What you - do to me.” Her cheeks were pink, though it might be from the sun. “That’s some damn good experience, Castle. Someone taught you that, surely.”</p><p>“Someone taught me,” he said cautiously. “Do you really want to know this?”</p><p>She chewed on her bottom lip, but her eyes were untroubled. Curious. “Yeah, I do. How did you - what was your first time?”</p><p>Oh, fuck. Tonight was going to be her first time. Tonight would be a story she told someone, some day in the future, maybe even their own sons. </p><p>No fucking pressure.</p><p>“Well, I was - it was a training session,” he answered.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>He cleared his throat and helped the boys push the blanket into the bag. “My father arranged it. I was sixteen. I’d - uh - never done anything before. Other than what I’d done to myself, of course.”</p><p>“Wait, wait, Castle. Castle. Hang on. You - were sixteen? Black arranged it?”</p><p>He nodded, zipping the bag shut and trying to get the boys moving in one direction. </p><p>“What was her name?” she husked.</p><p>He turned back to her, cocking his head. “She wasn’t allowed to tell me. Of course. You know.”</p><p>Kate’s face blanched and she nodded. “Of - of course. Yes.” She looked shaken. “I know.”</p><p>“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to-”</p><p>“I just... you didn’t even know her name. Did you ever see her again?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Was she - pretty?”</p><p>“I... no. She was - older. I was sixteen, so of course she seemed ancient to me. I just - she knew how to touch me, and she knew what was supposed to happen, and explained to me what was going on in my body. And then - what she liked, how she liked it, where I was supposed to put my mouth or my hands.”</p><p>“Oh, God,” she whispered. Suddenly her arms were around his neck, her body thrown against his so that he was knocked off balance. He had to grip her shoulders to keep from falling backward.</p><p>“Kate?”</p><p>“You were sixteen,” she croaked. Her hand cupped the back of his neck, her other hand caressing his jaw. She was strangely, wonderfully tender in this moment, and he didn’t understand at all. He had just told her about someone else, about his first time and not with her, and she was holding him like he was - something precious.</p><p>“Kate,” he tried again.</p><p>“You were sixteen, Castle. You were... that’s not okay, it’s no okay what he did. Some woman you didn’t even know, didn’t even want. Oh, love, that’s not how it should be.”</p><p>He furrowed his brow and he tentatively cradled the back of her head. “Kate? It’s okay. It was a good thing. It prepared me for my life. It let me know exactly what was to come, and showed me how great a tool it was, if I did it right.”</p><p>She shook her head, her face buried in his neck. Her fingers dug into him, a grip so tight it sent numbing tingles up into his skull.</p><p>Her lips brushed his cheek, and then his jaw, and then her open mouth against his. “Then tonight is for you, as much as it is for me, love. Maybe more. Give you back all the things you should’ve had.”</p><p>-----</p><p>She hadn't given it much thought before, just the annoying buzz of arousal he wouldn't satisfy, and then the lovely release as his fingers did the work. His mouth. His body over hers. It was enough, more than she'd had for weeks, (years), and the idea that tonight was any different had been an afterthought.</p><p>But now it should be different. So very different. For him. And, yes, for her as well. It ought to be special, because they weren't the same as they'd been, because things had changed, because he was right about the first time and the story she was likely never to tell to anyone but herself. She wanted that story for them, and she wanted (feminine pride, maybe?) to be that for him.</p><p>So she interrogated him ruthlessly, pursuing every last detail as they rounded up the boys and made the trek back to the Jeep. "And she used her mouth?"</p><p>"Yes," he bit out, flashing her these looks of annoyance. She could see that having her talk about it was making him hard, and good, let him be frustrated for a change.</p><p>"But that was only at the end," she reaffirmed.</p><p>"Like a - send-off," he muttered, rolling his eyes at her.</p><p>"What were you doing when you were sixteen? I mean for Black."</p><p>His shoulders hunched, and she wondered if he knew he did that. Every time. Defensive - not of his father, but of himself. Self-defense. </p><p>"I was in the Army."</p><p>"At sixteen?"</p><p>"Well, fudged the records a bit. I looked older - matured faster than the others - had muscle and the height and even though my cheeks were smooth, wasn't much different than the other guys there."</p><p>"How long were you in the Army?"</p><p>"Six years. Until he transferred me out to MI - military intelligence. But that was really a guise for CIA work."</p><p>"When did you meet Eastman?"</p><p>Now Castle's look was dark and brutal, a violence in it that caught her breath. "Sixteen. Back then. He was assigned to me by my father to be my handler. He was - my trainer in a way."</p><p>"Did he know you were sixteen?" she murmured, touching the back of his elbow with her hand, curling around his bicep. James and Wyatt were racing ahead and alternately coming back to them, Wyatt a little wobbly and unsure of himself, but still managing to keep up with his brother.</p><p>"He didn't know, no. I bet he had suspicions, but I was already far more advanced than anyone else in my squad, and he looked out for me anyway."</p><p>"He looked out for you," she sighed. Of course he had. He'd been kind to her; she could only assume he'd have seen that in Castle too, someone in need of kindness. "Did you have girls in the Army?"</p><p>"There are girls in the Army, yeah. Why?"</p><p>She snorted, bending down to touch the top of James's head where he'd coming running to her with a handful of grass. "Pretty, baby. Very good," she said absently, straightening up with her arm still caught in Castle's. "I meant did you have a girl, or find girls to have sex with at least? A little relief."</p><p>"Well, no. The job - that wasn't the job. And despite what you hear about Saigon babies, there really isn't time for an enlisted man to hare off and have an affair with a local."</p><p>"You telling me the boys don't have a hundred half siblings around the world?" she teased.</p><p>Castle sent her a baleful eye. "I can't have kids, Kate."</p><p>"Well, too bad, buddy. You got 'em."</p><p>He huffed and collared her neck, gripping with his fingers. "Not what I meant. Shooting blanks, sweetheart."</p><p>She stiffened, horror washing through her again so fast, so suddenly that she couldn't put words to voice it. It sight in a tight, cold, furious ball in her lungs, every breath painful.</p><p>"So you don't have to worry about some bastard kid showing up and claiming their rightful inheritance," Castle chuckled, oblivious to the revelation he'd unloaded on her. "Only ever going to have yours. Ours. You know, I really like the sound of that. Our kids. Our sons. It - sorry, I'm being sentimental. I'll stop."</p><p>She shook her head, breath whistling through the icy inscape of her anger.</p><p>Terror.</p><p>She couldn't tell which it was - fear or ferocity. "Castle," she got out. "Castle, he - did that to you."</p><p>"I told you - good experience for me, for my life, prepped me for the things I had to do in my job. And really, Kate, she wasn't some old hag. She was nice enough. She explained-"</p><p>"No, not - not that," she groaned, stopping him on the path. "Castle. God. He had to have - made you like that. Infertile. Because - shit - how in the fucking world would he be able to makethem?" She gestured violently to the trail ahead of them and the boys jostling each other for space as they ran back.</p><p>Castle went very still.</p><p>She oofed as James and Wyatt both ran full tilt into her legs, and she had to lean over and clutch at them to keep her balance. Giggling faces peered up at her, hands fisting her mud-stiff jeans, and she cupped first James's cheeks, and then Wyatt, her heart thundering for him.</p><p>"He did that to me," Castle said queerly. </p><p>"Maybe the elixir is part of how, but... you would've had to have - um - fully charged stuff at some point, sweetheart. For him to bank. To use later." </p><p>"He did it to me." </p><p>She shivered and stood up straighter, peering anxiously at his face. "I don't know the science, that's true, so maybe that's not right. Maybe it's just that he took - I don't know - can you take sex chromosomes and combine them without sperm? I really don't know how it works. Test tube babies. I just assumed he - you know - stuck a turkey baster up there-"</p><p>"Fuck, Kate, you have to stop."</p><p>She shut her mouth, frozen, but Castle turned into her and grabbed her up, clutching her against his chest and within his embrace so tightly, so violently, that she had to snake her arms out to wrap them around his neck and hang on.</p><p>"It's okay," she murmured. "It's okay now. He's dead. He's gone. And we have these boys, two beautiful boys. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Castle. He never should have done that to you."</p><p>-----</p><p>John Black had sterilized him.</p><p>His father had sterilized him. </p><p>Well, fuck.</p><p>Well. </p><p>Fuck.</p><p>“Baby, you okay?” she said cautiously. Her hands gripped his hips, her chin tilted up to look at him. “Rick.”</p><p>“Okay,” he answered immediately. Gut reaction. “I’m - essential facts stay the same. Good for the job. Can’t get myself in trouble.”</p><p>Her fingers petted his abs, stroked at his forearms and caught his hands. “Baby, I think - you said we should shrink each other, right? I think you maybe need to talk about this a little.” When his mouth opened, she flushed and shook her head. “No, I know. Pot, kettle. I hear myself. But... this is a big deal. It’s more than just essential facts.”</p><p>He stared down at her, tried to make his mind catch in gear. “I have never been able to - at least, as far as I know. He told me at the beginning, when I was first starting deep cover with the CIA. I had a physical, administered by him, of course, because no ordinary doc could be part of the whole program. And he said the physical showed I wasn’t going to have to worry about pulling out.”</p><p>Kate flinched.</p><p>Castle growled. “Yeah, those were his exact words. Fuck.”</p><p>“Did he... um, I’m not sure how to ask this.”</p><p>“Ask,” he muttered. “Go ahead. What the fuck does it matter?”</p><p> “For this physical, did you happen to be given anesthesia? To put you under. I - um - I’ve learned it’s his m.o. for medical procedures.”</p><p>“Oh, fucking hell,” he groaned. The boys were scrambling around their feet, but at his noise, James stopped and came back to him, clutching his shorts with both fists. Castle dipped his knees, cupped James’s shoulder. “It’s okay, kid. Just fine. Go play, yeah? Wyatt’s looking for you.”</p><p>It took a moment, like James couldn’t believe it, and Castle gently rubbed the boy’s ear with a thumb, soothing him like Kate did. James released his shorts and knocked his head into Castle’s hand, precisely like the move Kate had for loving on the boys. James dropped back to the path and headed for his brother, certain now about Castle’s mental health. </p><p>Despite everything, he had two sons, good boys, boys who loved their mother fiercely, boys who had fought for her as Castle would have fought for her, and they were beginning to learn each other, love each other.</p><p>“Castle?”</p><p>He let out a slow breath and shrugged, slowly reached out to take her hand. “Is what it is, I guess. And yeah, there was a test to see how much was necessary to knock me out. My metabolism is different, I told you that. And anyway, I guess he did it then. Lost about five hours. The fucker froze my sperm and then snipped me, didn’t he?”</p><p>“I - think he must have,” Kate murmured.</p><p>He barked a laugh, more noise than anything, but the fucking thing was - the hell of it was - it had been damn useful for his job. And no one - not a single person in the entire world - had ever tempted him to wish he was anything other.</p><p>No one but Kate. And like fuck he ever wanted her pregnant. After everything, God, no. But Kate. Her decision. He’d have wanted the chance to give her that choice, unlike-</p><p>Unlike the boys. But now she didn’t have that because he didn’t have that because-</p><p>Black had done it to him.</p><p>“Well, fuck, really?” he muttered. “Really, Kate, he did it to me either way. If I thought I was born that way, it was the elixir that did it. His elixir. So. What. Fine. What the fuck. I am not letting that fucking asshole have one more day, one more thought.”</p><p>Her lips twitched.</p><p>“You laughing at me?”</p><p>“No,” she gasped, a little helpless laugh in it. </p><p>“You are.”</p><p>“Not really. I’m just - relieved. You shrink easy.”</p><p>He laughed hard at that, curling his arm around her shoulders as they barely walked the path. They were at a crawl by now. The boys were ahead of them making circles on the path, spinning and jabbering at each other. Nonsense, though he did hear ‘Eep’ every now and then.</p><p>“I shrink easy because I’m used to it. Long habit of debrief.”</p><p>“Debrief,” she murmured, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Is that code for sex?”</p><p>He chuckled. “No, baby. It’s not. But we can make it so.”</p><p>She wriggled against his side. “Let’s make it so.”</p><p>Castle squeezed her a little tighter and kissed her temple. “Tonight. Debrief like rabbits.”</p><p>“Like spies,” she hummed.</p><p>-----</p><p>"No, no, I want to," she told him, shooing him away from James. Castle lifted his hands in surrender and backed off, though he looked amused with her. She realized her voice was a little childish - her attitude was a little childish - but she was pleased to be able to pick up her son and put him in his car seat.</p><p>Her son, her son. Still jolted her down to her bones when she caught herself thinking about the boys like that. Like she'd made a mistake, slipped up, and someone was going to punish her for claiming them.</p><p>James patted her chest with a hand, wriggling and humming in an animated, Wyatt-like way. She let herself kiss his little cheek, forced herself to overcome those self-defense instincts she'd seen rise up in Castle too at the mention of his father.</p><p>His father. God. It was-</p><p>"Mama," James said happily, beaming at her. She shifted his weight and nestled him in his car seat, pulled the straps down over his head. "Mama, yeep."</p><p>"Jeep, baby," she murmured softly, clicking the restraints in place. "We're in a Jeep. With a 'j' - like your name. Jeep. James."</p><p>His brow furrowed and she saw his tongue moving at his gums as if trying to reproduce the sound. She wondered if that was how Wyatt was doing it too, that intense, narrow focus on getting it right, or if Wyatt just picked up language a lot more naturally.</p><p>If that was true, then why hadn't either boy been talking?</p><p>"Mama, you."</p><p>She huffed and kissed his pursed mouth, cradling his cheeks. "Okay, I know. You love me, and I'm not thinking about nice things. We had a good day, didn't we, baby?" </p><p>"Ooh, yay!" James said, throwing up both hands.</p><p>She laughed and brushed the hair off his forehead, grimy little face smiling at her. "Good day, that's right."</p><p>She felt the car shift as Castle moved to close the back trunk door, their picnic stuff stored away. He had Wyatt dogging his heels, a little hero worship, and he came around and opened up the other passenger door. "You want to load him in as well, or am I allowed to help?"</p><p>"Shut up," she said, sticking her tongue out at him. "You can help. I just - want to do my share."</p><p>"Teamwork," he said quietly, a little smile.</p><p>"Yeah," she shrugged, frustrated by how stupid she felt over doing her part. "I mean, half mine, half yours, and it's a one-to-one ratio this way, so... yeah."</p><p>"Partners," he said with relish. A strange satisfaction in his voice and a thinking veil cast over his face. "That's - interesting."</p><p>She meant to say, we're not partners, not life-partners. But that didn't come out of her mouth. "What's interesting?" she said suspiciously, tugging on James's safety restraints to check.</p><p>"Black never let me have a partner. CIA is supposed to team you up when you work in the field, even as an assassin, you have a support guy. But I never did, and I always - wanted one. Just. It'd have been nice to have back-up."</p><p>Heat flared through her so fast that her fingers burned and her skin tightened. She hadn't been expecting it either, the way his words had affected her, and maybe she'd been defenseless because of it - but it got to her.</p><p>"Well, now you have back-up," she said, looking at him across the seats, across the boys. "I'm your back-up."</p><p>That dawn of awe that she'd seen on the rock had now come over him, that flush of I don't understand why and maybe a little sexual urgency as well. She was beginning to read him, his looks and twist of the lips, and while his body language told her more and more, she realized it was something else.</p><p>Their - connection. Elixir linked, the sense of him stayed with her now always. She found herself unconsciously aware of the eddies and currents of his mood in a way that went beyond posture or facial expressions.</p><p>His moods. As if the tone of their encounters, conversations, exchanges no longer came filtered, as if he was clear and cool as a stream cutting through the bedrock of her own soul.</p><p>He was going to wear her down. And the natural formations would be - breathtaking, yes - but still different. Changed. Altered.</p><p>And yet.</p><p>Wasn't she already? And terribly damaged in the alteration? So why not. Let Castle erode at her over time, let that sense of him press her down, work on her, until grit was pearl, until coal was diamond.</p><p>Damage couldn't be undone, but it could be reformed into something at least worthwhile. At least. At the very least, if he could make something new out of the fracked up shale of her life, then it'd be worth the damage he would do.</p><p>"Kate?"</p><p>She heard her name from a long way off and found herself returning slowly, standing before the open car door with Castle right against her, his touch on her shoulder light.</p><p>"Kate, honey, it's time to go."</p><p>"Mama, you." The door was open. James's head was tilted against the car seat, one of his hands outstretched to her. She was just far enough out of his reach that the frustration was evident on his face.</p><p>Kate pulled herself back to them, a breath rattling in her chest, dry and stale. She caught his fist and pushed her thumb into his palm, smoothed open his hand. He smiled, shyly this time, and ducked his head.</p><p>Castle skimmed the back of her arm. "Where did you go?"</p><p>"I - don't know," she murmured, a helpless, irritated shrug. "The Grand Canyon."</p><p>He sighed, drew her against his chest. "Don't fall in, baby." He was pressed against her so hard that she felt the keys in his pocket, sharp and angled.</p><p>She clutched the back of his shirt with a fist. "I want - want to drive the car. Can I drive?"</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle very carefully didn't ask and do you know how to drive? as she crept the Jeep up to fifty-five. She was being cautious, though not what he'd call hesitant, and she had a good sense of timing and precision. She took the curves a little faster than he'd like, but this was a sport Jeep, built lower to the ground, and it wouldn't rollover - not with his modifications.</p><p>He figured she was just inexperienced. And the only way to get that experience was through practice.</p><p>Plus, if it came down to it - morbid as it was to think this way - he and the boys were genetically engineered to survive. And it was a psychological fact that the driver instinctively protected him or herself in the midst of a collision.</p><p>So he wasn’t concerned, merely watchful. Though he wasn’t showing it. </p><p>“You never told me if you had girls in the Army,” she said then.</p><p>Castle snorted. “No. No time, honey. I told you that.”</p><p>“But surely you - practiced? To be this good.”</p><p>“No? I can’t think of any - I mean, later, sure. There were opportunities I took to further the mission, and often that had the element of having to do ingratiating things.”</p><p>“Like?”</p><p>He rolled his eyes. “You sure you want specifics?”</p><p>“Yeah. Why not? Unless you don’t kiss and tell.”</p><p>“It wasn’t ever really like that. And I had to kiss and tell - the debrief. Shit, every encounter had to be written up in triplicate.”</p><p>She actually wrinkled her nose, shooting him a fast look. “That’s not very sexy.”</p><p>“No, baby, it’s really not,” he chuckled. “Thus - not often I went for it unless it was necessary.”</p><p>“Okay, well, tell me about a time it was necessary. What you wound up doing. Who you learned from.”</p><p>Castle scratched his head and leaned back in the seat, relaxing a little more. “Hm, well, okay, there was a girl in a club in Germany. The guys from the base went out and I was tracking down some supply shipments that had been stolen. They hit up these girls on the dance floor, group thing, weirdly enough, and it eased my way.”</p><p>“Again for the job,” she mused. He watched her hands on the wheel and noted she wasn’t quite relaxed. She was nervous, or at least aware enough that she hadn’t the skills maybe necessary in mountainous terrain like this. He was pleased. </p><p>“I did it as part of the job, yeah.” </p><p>He glanced into the backseat at the boys. They were both quiet, staring out their respective windows, eyes trying to keep track of the swift slide of trees past the glass. James turned and smiled at him, lifting his feet and hands to Castle, and Castle reached back and grabbed one little hand, shaking him in acknowledgment.</p><p>“Did you learn something from her? This girl in Germany. Or - oh. Group?”</p><p>“Group,” he confirmed. “I learned that performing for a crowd is much harder.”</p><p>She gave a little puff of air like laughter. “So no orgies for Agent Castle.”</p><p>He growled. “No orgies for you. I don’t play well with others, Beckett. I don’t share.”</p><p>She hummed, a pleased little smile on her mouth. “But this was one?”</p><p>“This was more like, hey let’s all have sex in the same room, won’t that be cool? But it wasn’t cool. It was one guy who couldn’t keep his eyes of our dicks, and then another girl who couldn’t keep her hands off. Which pissed off another guy, and then the LT was getting head and yelling at us about being fucking asshole perverts, and I’d had enough.”</p><p>“As much as I’m trying to be cool about this,” she said, laughing a little, “I can’t imagine it. I mean, that sounds seriously bizarre, Castle.”</p><p>“It was. Bizarre is exactly the right word. But this girl, Marie, she was the one on whom I figured out that if I gave it good enough, she wouldn’t ask too many questions. So being good at oral sex meant I could cover any mistake, any slip of the tongue or suspicion, and burn any thought out of a woman’s mind.”</p><p>“Don’t I know it,” she muttered. </p><p>he grinned, couldn’t help it. “But otherwise, Kate, it’s been a series of lessons, things picked up her and there, stories from other guys, whatever. That woman when I was sixteen, she was thorough. She liked to come, you could tell. She taught me quite a lot how to make a woman come, so that became my main action.”</p><p>“You talk about it like it was work.”</p><p>“It was work,” he said. “Sex was nothing more than work, nothing more than a debrief, really, if it wasn’t for work. Decant whatever fucking anger or frustration is brewing in me, and then it’s done. I’m done. And I can go on to the next thing.”</p><p>“That doesn’t sound... fun at all.” She sighed and her hands dropped to cradle the wheel now that they were on a straight stretch. “When was sex ever just something you chose because you wanted to fuck it out, to just - what do they say? - clean out the pipes.”</p><p>“About two weeks ago,” he murmured. “That’s when it was fun. Something I chose because I wanted. You made me want. Made me feel. All churned up. And then when you touched me, it was just touching me, that’s all, but it was like being electrocuted. Straight and sharp in my guts.”</p><p>She said nothing to that, though he hoped she was thinking about it, hoped it was her silently processing. She needed to know how different this was, and therefore how important. How vital to him.</p><p>“This is new for me, too,” he said finally. “All feels new. Nothing I ever learned before.”</p><p>After a moment, Kate cleared her throat. “What else? What else have you learned?” If he wasn’t thinking straight, it could have sounded like, Who am I up against?</p><p>“There was a woman in Ireland,” he said cautiously. He knew giving her his own stories made up for the intimacy she’d been forced into with him. So he gave her his experiences. “She was all over me. And I almost went for it, knowing she was fucking the arms smuggler I was after. I knew I could turn her if I was given enough time.”</p><p>“But you didn’t?”</p><p>“I could see through her so damn clearly. She was only doing exactly what I had been trained to do. I knew from experience precisely how she’d approach and what she wanted out of me, and it was just so blatant, so fucking blatant, that I couldn’t stand it. I’d been using women all across the damn Continent, and yet when it came to her, the idea of giving her anything at all made me sick.”</p><p>“Did you accomplish the mission? Did you sleep with her?”</p><p>“Yes,” he said shortly. His jaw worked. “But that fucking bastard is still out there. It didn’t do any good to fuck her, because she was playing me too, and the intel I got was long dead. You better believe, Black never let me hear the end of it. But I couldn’t do it all out the way they wanted me to, they way I’d been trained. She was a fucking cunt, and she would slit my throat as soon as kiss me, but I fucked her.”</p><p> “I can’t promise I won’t slit your throat,” she murmured quietly. Her eyes darted to his and then back to the road. “But i’ll do my best.”</p><p>-----</p><p>She had driven in silence for a few minutes when Castle suddenly spoke up.</p><p>"You know what? You might not want to hear this, but even if you did slit my throat - which you won't, it won't happen - but even then, hypothetically speaking if you did - it would still be so damn worth it."</p><p>And he was right, she didn't want to hear that from him, but it still made her throat close up. Hard and aching so that she gripped the steering wheel tighter.</p><p>"Kate... I haven't - ever had..."</p><p>She squirmed in the seat, her eyes resolutely on the road and its dangerous curves ahead.</p><p>"I know this is too much, and I'm sorry, but I can't help thinking it's something to hold on to, and maybe it helps to know that you're - so much to me. Important. Such a damn useless word for what I mean. But talking about my sex life, which is just perfunctory most times, and mildly satisfying at others, just highlights for me how incredibly different this is between us. Maybe it's the elixir, and it's fated, maybe it's love at first sight of you - blood-drenched and so fucking hot warrior goddess, maybe it's that fierce and dominant spirit that struggles in you and against me and makes me feel like it's actually worth something this time. I don't know. Any of those reasons. Still arrive at the same conclusion: you are singular, and I am not letting go."</p><p>Kate breathed. One more breath, dragging it into her lungs. Another, sucking it down again. She had to. She had to breathe.</p><p>"And I just keep talking, I know. Fuck, it's like word vomit; I can't stop. I just can't imagine - it fucking hurts to think that you might not know, might not feel how much you mean to me, that you'd doubt at all ever how good you are for me, to me, how I want to weep - ah, fuck, I have wept, haven't I? Shit, that is so not sexy."</p><p>"It was to me."</p><p>His head snapped to hers, eyes burning as he stared at her, and she couldn't look long, not with the road coming up curves, not with the intensity of his absolutely avid regard.</p><p>"You tell me what you like, Kate." His voice was hoarse, rough, and it soaked through her. "Tell me what you've done, what you like me to do. I want to do all those things to you, make you feel it."</p><p>"I..."</p><p>"Do you like it when I slide my fingers inside you?"</p><p>"God," she whispered.</p><p>"I hope that's a yes, because I so fucking love having my fingers there. Gripping the back of your neck and holding you against me and driving my fingers up so that you ride my hand."</p><p>She mewled, struggling now to keep her eyes on the road. "I love the feeling of - of your thigh between my legs, rocking against you."</p><p>"Oh, yes, love. That's so good. What else?"</p><p>"And - and your mouth, your tongue but - but your teeth too. Together."</p><p>"Against your clit, flicking it back and forth."</p><p>"Y-yes," she gasped.</p><p>"Mm, yeah, I love that too. The sounds you make."</p><p>"Hell," she whispered, her eyes fiercely on the road, gripping the wheel, wanting a whole lot more than his voice telling her a story.</p><p>"Are you turned on right now?"</p><p>"Have been since you told me about - about them. What it was - like for you." She had trouble getting the words out but it seemed so vital that they be there, out, and not inside her. "I like knowing what you - are. Who you are. All the versions of you."</p><p>"Even the nasty ones?"</p><p>"Maybe especially those."</p><p>"It turns you on to hear me talking about a group thing in Germany or a bitch in Ireland?"</p><p>"I... yes? Does that make me-"</p><p>"No," he said shortly. "No. Pull over, Kate."</p><p>"What?" she startled, shooting him a fast look.</p><p>He wanted her; she could see it. "Pull over somewhere, side of the road. Pull over. I want to touch you."</p><p>There ought to be a thousand reasons that wasn't a good idea, but she couldn't think of one. And she didn't want to think of one either. She wanted him to touch her and go on touching her and never ever stop.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate jerked up on the parking brake - habit held over from her father's teaching her to drive in the city - and she yanked the keys out of the ignition.</p><p>His hand closed over her wrist and she had that instinctive spurt of no before it was flamed out in the vicious claw of her own need. </p><p>"Crawl over," he husked, tugging on her wrist even as he reached in to unbuckle her seatbelt.</p><p>She had a quick look in the back at the boys - fine, just fine - and then she flung off the safety restraint and lunged for Castle.</p><p>"Crawl in my lap," he was growling, his fingers bruising her thigh as he dragged her over the console. She nearly kneed him in the groin, managed to angle herself towards the door instead, yelping when her knee smacked the molded plastic. "Sorry, baby, sorry, sorry."</p><p>"Fine, I'm fine," she insisted, settling her ass back on his thighs and trying to get closer. "Scoot up so I can get close-"</p><p>"Smart, smart," he panted, his mouth already trailing hot and furious down her neck and the tops of her breasts. "Mm, you smell good."</p><p>With his hips canted up, she slid her knees into the extremely tight space at either side, groaning when her sex pressed against him. His arm banded at her lower back, urging her forward, into him, and she began rocking against the hard plane of his abs.</p><p>"Wait, baby, hang on. I want to touch you," he hummed, lifting his head from her breasts. She whined but it quickly turned into a gasp as his fingers popped open the button of her jeans and yanked down the zipper. "Oh, that's better, here we are."</p><p>She arched into his eager seeking, an arm around his neck to hang on, her insides going up like a flame. His fingers found her, wet, slick, and began to play, teasing strokes and whispers, her whole body thrumming. "Castle," she groaned. "Castle, please."</p><p>"Hush, sweetheart," he murmured, capturing her mouth for a long, obscene kiss. His tongue mimicked the thrusts of his fingers, counterpoint, penetrated dually. </p><p>Kate moaned around his kiss, invaded all the more, desperately trying to widen her thighs to let him get deeper, higher, tighter inside her.</p><p>"Gotta be quiet, baby," he whispered, tonguing her throat as he explored back down to her breasts. "Quiet, love. Boys in the back."</p><p>"Oh, God," she whimpered, bowing in over his head as he worked his fingers inside her. Rubbing fiercely now, hard, some magic place just behind her pelvic bone that made everything urgent and dire and now.</p><p>"Come on, sweetheart, come for me. Shaking like a leaf in my arms, you want it so badly."</p><p>"Please," she mewled.</p><p>"Here we are, here we go, feel it, honey. You're so wet and hot."</p><p>She broke apart in an instant, crying his name into the dark heat of his neck even as his fingers worked furious, insistent circles inside her in a rhythm so necessary it was like breathing.</p><p>-----</p><p>“Mama-mama-mama-mama-”</p><p>Kate came back to the white noise of two boys babbling her name and Castle’s shaky laugh in her ear. His free hand was heavy on the back of her head, petting her hair with a clumsy touch. </p><p>And his other hand-</p><p>Oh, hell. She was still tingling all over, collapsed against his chest.</p><p>“Mama’s good,” Castle called back. His voice sounded rough, textured in a way that made her shiver. “I took care of your mom. Pipe down, boys.”</p><p>And they did, which was - ought to be interesting, except she was shivering every time he shifted his hand between her legs.</p><p>“Guess they got that,” Kate croaked, dragging her hand down his neck to press against his chest. Prepping herself to lift off of him, not sure where she could possibly find the will. She shifted, one hand coming down to his thigh for leverage.</p><p>But Castle jerked his hand away, making her grunt with the raw feeling of his fingers scraping her over-sensitive sex, but he caught her wrist and pressed her palm to his chest.</p><p>Her heart was now thundering, sweat breaking on the back of her neck, her forehead, but Castle let out a fast breath and clutched her tighter.</p><p>“Felt I should stop you,” he harshed. “Messy down there.”</p><p>“What?” she whispered, closing her eyes just to block out the sound of her own heart pounding in her head.</p><p>“Didn’t meant to do that,” he muttered. “But oh well.”</p><p>“But what...?” She sucked in a breath and tilted her head forward, but her forehead crashed into his and the bruise would hurt later. Later. Right now she was struggling to breathe.</p><p>“Kate?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“What’s wr-” Castle cursed and released her wrist, took his grip away from her neck. “Shit. Sorry. I - reacted. But you - shit. You’re okay. You’re okay.”</p><p>“I’m okay,” she husked, nodding against his forehead and burrowing down against him. His arms finally came around her, lightly, his palm rubbing up and down her back.</p><p>“My fault, honey. I should’ve thought. Well. Thoughts kinda went straight out of my head.”</p><p>“Yeah,” she croaked, bringing her knees back against his hips, pushing her body to his.</p><p>He embraced her a little tighter now, and she felt herself loosening up again, that bliss falling over her once more, overriding the pounding of her heart.</p><p>Kate sighed and closed her eyes, her cheek against his shoulder, her hands dropping.</p><p>Castle stiffened.</p><p>His - pants were wet?</p><p>Oh. Oh, his pants were wet.</p><p>Kate giggled and sat up straight, hooking her fingers in his belt loops as she looked at him. “Um, thoughts went right out of your head, huh?”</p><p>He narrowed his eyes at her.</p><p>“Rick Castle,” she murmured, teasing her thumb over his button. “Did you just come in your pants?”</p><p>“You did too,” he huffed.</p><p>She chuckled and lifted her eyes to his, fiddled with his zipper. “You really came?”</p><p>“Damn it, woman.”</p><p>Kate laughed, her breath catching and then releasing, the last of her panic fading to nothing. “I made you come in your pants and I wasn’t even touching you.”</p><p>“Yes. Fine.” He sighed melodramatically, and Kate realized the boys were calling back and forth to each other, or maybe to them. She peeked around the headrest and saw James pointing past Wyatt towards the window, jabbering in something like real words, while Wyatt kept turning his head to look and apparently not seeing it.</p><p>Kate turned her eyes back to Castle, and she saw the pink flush to his ears. Was he embarrassed? Oh, no. He shouldn’t be. So cute, adorable really, that hesitance in the curl of his lips, like he didn’t want to show how much it affected him.</p><p>Kate traced a finger over his groin, circling the wet spot. “We - um - should get you a new pair of pants, huh, baby?”</p><p>She saw his throat bob. He nodded.</p><p>“Maybe a pair of scrubs from the corner store?” she murmured. “That pharmacy.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he rasped. “Okay.”</p><p>She framed his face with her hands, leaned in and softly kissed his down-turned mouth. “Hush. I really love it. You just made my day, Rick Castle.”</p><p>“Don’t patronize-”</p><p>“No, baby, never,” she murmured, kissing him again. Gently. She rubbed her fingertips across the rough of his jaw. “Never.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle fidgeted in the passenger seat while Kate ran into the pharmacy alone. It was the same place they'd gotten baby clothes and pacifiers and all that (pacifiers, shit, he needed to find those; they'd been crammed into the corners of the bed last he saw, and he thought the boys were hoarding them, and that broke his heart more than a little and he hadn't told her because he didn't want her heart broken over it too). </p><p>She was alone in there, though she'd looked both purposeful and easy-going about it. It had  been her idea, going in to get him a pair of shorts that he could change into, and she had talked about it from the beginning like she'd be doing it alone.</p><p>She hadn't even faltered when she'd shut the car door.</p><p>He wondered if it was the sense of mission. He'd noticed the same straightening of her spine and look in her eyes at the restaurant when he'd given her the cover details in the parking lot. He was going to have to remember that, use it to their advantage when she slipped into that debilitating panic mode.</p><p>Spy mode. Basically, right? She was in spy mode. That she had a spy mode at all suggested Beckett was far more resilient and unbreakable than his father had any idea of, because instead of a fucking brood mare, Black would have used her in the fight.</p><p>He might have been partnered with her, had Black realized. Maybe. </p><p>Would his father really have not noticed? No, Black had noticed. He had remarked upon it his all-too-clinical notes so often that Castle had paid attention. He had just had a different plan in mind for Kate, an attitude that she was beneath him - them - that her value and worth to their world was in a very narrow channel. Fit only for animals. Perhaps well-groomed. But not well-loved. </p><p>He had to remember that as well. Because he'd been brain-washed by his father so damn thoroughly that he still didn't have the bastard out of his head. And he would bet that Kate had internalized a lot of Black's psychological warfare as well. The man had been a master at it. How could she have not?</p><p>Really, the fact that Kate had asked to drive, that she had stood in the closet this morning and asked for a dinner date, the idea that she had wandered down the beach with Wyatt away from him - those were huge steps towards reclaiming her own mind. Staggering leaps, to be honest. After only two weeks. </p><p>Kate was far more impressive than Black had given her credit for. </p><p>And the proof of her superiority was in the fact that she was alive while Black was not.</p><p>"Daddy?'</p><p>Castle turned around and saw James behind him in his carseat, both little eyebrows raised, but his head back in the seat, relaxed enough. Castle reached out a hand and stroked it down the boy's bare leg, smiling at him. "Thinking about your mom. It's good, kiddo. How's Mommy doing in there, huh?"</p><p>"Mommy," James said with relish, smiling his shy and happy smile. His eyes shined, and his cheek dropped against the side of the car seat's raised back, that good kind of tired in every slack line of his body.</p><p>"Mommy's good then, if you're good. You'd let me know, James, wouldn't you? Mommy's good at shutting it down, but you'd be able to tell."</p><p>"Mommy," James echoed, his voice fainter as his eyelids drooped. Castle glanced to Wyatt and saw that the boy had already fallen asleep, the long morning and lunch having worn them out despite their short nap. Over stimulated, probably, considering how little they'd gotten inside that facility.</p><p>Castle continue to run his finger over his son's leg, up and down along his shin, and James's eyes closed, his body relaxing. He had a strange little spurt of startled eyes-open awareness, blinking and then he sank again back to sleep with a soft murmur of daddy.</p><p>"Night, baby," he murmured back. He didn't know if the connection severed when the boy slept, but he thought Kate might not want him running in to save her anyway.</p><p>Even if she had a full-blown panic attack, she'd want to struggle through it on her own, handle it alone. Prove something.</p><p>Castle withdrew his arm and turned back around in the seat, wondered if he could find her, if he could close his eyes and reach out for her and feel that connection like James did.</p><p>But instead of reaching out, he somehow reached back, felt her presence in his lap, her breath hot at his neck, heard those noises she made as he drove his fingers inside her. Surrounded by the sense of her, he couldn't find a way to break free of memory, could only relive their interlude in the car.</p><p>And then a sharp rap sounded on the glass and his eyes flew open.</p><p>Kate. Smirking a little as she stood beside the driver's side door. He hurriedly leaned over and unlocked the door for her, and she slid inside behind the wheel with the plastic bag in her hand.</p><p>"Hey, baby," she breathed. "Got you a pair of cargo shorts. Kinda cheap, but they'll work. And maybe Colin won't notice." Her eyebrows went up and then he saw the flush on her cheeks, the way she drew her bottom lip into her teeth, her tongue licking for a moment before releasing it.</p><p>Awareness dawned on Castle. "What were you thinking about in there?" he said, reaching for the bag as she held it out to him. "Because whatever it was, sure had me stiffening up in here."</p><p>"Had you-" Kate barked a laugh and flushed bright red, even her neck, that sweet and hot flush that he'd seen in bed. "Ah. I see," she murmured. "Perhaps."</p><p>"Perhaps what, Beckett?"</p><p>Her eyes were so alive when she was happy. "Perhaps I was thinking about you."</p><p>He hummed approval and caressed the top of her arm where it rested on the console between them. "Perhaps I was thinking about you."</p><p>"Wonder if that's why you - hmm - shot so soon? Every feeling is doubled."</p><p>His chest tightened and burned, arousal spilling hotly through him again. "Maybe so. Might need further research on that subject."</p><p>"Oh, research, huh?" Her lips were quirked, her eyes devouring him.</p><p>"For science," he answered, grinning back at her.</p><p>There was only one little blip on her face, one shuttered look that fell away immediately again - so good was she at suppressing things, at roping them off and never looking back.</p><p>But he saw it. And then he heard what he'd said for science, further research like this was all an experiment.</p><p>And he didn't know how to take it back. Damage done, and she'd absorbed the blow and papered over it just that fast. </p><p>Two strikes this afternoon. Catching her by the wrist and inducing a panic attack, and now talking about sex, even jokingly, like they were a science experiment.</p><p>Fuck. </p><p>"I'll change clothes," he said quietly, still watching her, studying her for any sign of how he might fix it. "And then we can go?"</p><p>"Yeah," she said. And she was still smiling, still moderately relaxed, waiting on him. "Get to it, Castle."</p><p>He didn't know how to fix it. He had no idea. He brushed his thumb over her bicep and then lifted his hand to her face. Her eyelids fluttered shut and then flared open fiercely, as if she were proving something to herself.</p><p>He leaned in and kissed her very softly, trying to echo the gentleness, the tenderness with which she'd shown him after he had come. Trying to give it back to her in the only way she seemed able to take it.</p><p>Soft, gentle swipes of his tongue, the light seal of his lips.</p><p>Kate gave it back, and her hand curled around his ear, and then they broke from each other.</p><p>She nudged her cheek against his, pressing in that way she had, the only sign of love she'd been able to give the boys. And she gave it to him now, her fingers caressing his ear.</p><p>Maybe it was fixed. Maybe he had done exactly the right thing.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was something about the way Rick Castle touched her that made Kate’s insides soft and malleable. Like she could run right through his fingers. She didn’t know how he managed it, or what it was that instantly got her - (he smelled so clean and sharp, his hands were always warm, his body was wide and powerful) - but she felt both at ease, still, for once and also curiously strong.</p><p>She watched his ass while he changed in the backseat, his movements jerky and yet graceful, the inherent competence he carried in every line of his body. When he had a clean pair of shorts on, he jumped out of the back and came up to the passenger seat again, hopping in and thumping the dash.</p><p>“Let’s roll.”</p><p>She grinned and turned over the ignition, ignoring the flutter in her belly that said pull over, let me touch you in the same voice as Castle’s.</p><p>“Headed home?” she queried, backing the Jeep out of the space and putting it into drive again.</p><p>“Home, sweetheart. Unless you had plans. In which case, maybe you should’ve bought me more than one pair of pants.”</p><p>She felt her lips curling at the edges and tried to tamp them down, not give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much she thought the same. But it was a little late for that, and he liked her smiling, and so it broke out anyway.</p><p>She could practically hear him humming in pleased possessiveness. As if he owned her smile.</p><p>Perhaps he did.</p><p>She certainly couldn’t explain why, after a panic attack and two close calls, after his crying and her crying and a lot of miscommunication, all it had taken were two fingers pressed inside her and her body writhing in his lap for her to feel at once totally and completely like a new person.</p><p>Restorative. Rick Castle - beauty treatment for the stars.</p><p>Shrink master.</p><p>“What are you snorting about over there?” he called her out.</p><p>Kate huffed, unable to suppress it, a little wriggle through her shoulders with the quirky sense of mingled grief and joy. “Just me.”</p><p>“Just you what?”</p><p>“Snorting about myself,” she muttered.</p><p>“Well, you are quite addictive.”</p><p>It took her too long to make the connection - snort, cocaine, addiction - and then she scoffed and would have rolled her eyes had she not been driving. “Lame, Rick Castle. Totally lame.”</p><p>“Sorry, you’ve got my brains scrambled still from that interlude on the side of the road.”</p><p>“Me?” she said, though it felt richly, intensely good to have made him lose his load without so much as touching him. “You were the one who had his hand in my pants. And your brains are scrambled?”</p><p>“Touching you when you’re wet and desperate for me is a completely valid reason to still have cognitive trouble.”</p><p>Her cheeks burned. She could feel his fingers inside her - or the void where they had been, where her inner muscles still contracted and fluttered, seeking him. “Tonight is going to be brutal, isn’t it?”</p><p>“Brutal?”</p><p>She heard the tenor of his voice, the crack that ran through the melody, and she turned her head, fast, to catch the look in his eyes.<br/>Caution, the tinge of unhappiness that meant he was thinking too much.</p><p>“Brutal in a good way,” she offered. “Brutal in the way of pushing yourself inside me until I come apart.”</p><p>“Oh,” he said airily, “that. Yes. Well. Brutal it will be. Body and - heart, most likely.”</p><p>Heart. She fell silent, her mind racing to come up with an answer that didn’t start the brutalization now.</p><p>“Ignore me, Kate,” he said quietly. “Ignore me. Brain’s a mess. Words are falling out of my mouth without permission.”</p><p>“No, I-” She gripped the wheel, eyes resolutely on the road. “I think we should shrink us. About this. I think you’re right, Castle. If I can make you come in your pants just because of how much we feel each other...”</p><p>“Ah.”</p><p>“Then there’s cause for concern, or at least there’s a need to take a second and - and consider our hearts.”</p><p>Hers was beating entirely out of control. She was afraid he was going to call it off, tonight, that he would weigh the risk of laying himself bare to her once more and judge it not worthwhile. </p><p>She believed him when he said sex had never felt like this before. She had believed him the moment her hands had fallen in his lap and she’d felt the evidence of his release damp at his groin. He had come. The spy with a world’s experience, and half a dozen lifetimes worth of women, had come in his pants just pressing his fingers into her.</p><p> </p><p>As if he’d been right there with her.</p><p>So, yes, she believed him. This was new for him too. And while she knew that the novelty of this surge of emotion was carrying him right along, what happened when it inevitably receded? When the waters drained and the lust cleared and yet their connection had them - seared together. Fused in that way that made him lose control and her feel things so intensely she couldn’t handle it.</p><p>And even knowing all that, knowing she was a risk and a danger and no doubt on the edge, she couldn’t find the place where she felt deadly to him. It was just gone. Removed from her shoulder somehow. Not for good by any means. No, she could feel it lurking, waiting to settle over her, but maybe it was how near he was, how buzzing their connection was with that aware and naked energy.</p><p>“My heart will be just fine, Kate.”</p><p>She let out a sighing breath, but startled when his hand slid over her knee and squeezed.</p><p>“Batter my heart,” he murmured. His thumb dusted across her knee.</p><p>“‘Bend your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new,’” she mumbled, lines dragged up out of the depths of a place forgotten.</p><p>“What is that?” he called softly.</p><p>“A poem,” she breathed. “Batter my heart. John Donne. Don’t know why I remember it so clearly.”</p><p>“Bend your force to break and make me new?”</p><p>“Break, blow, burn...”</p><p>“I like it. It’s pretty.”</p><p>“Shut up,” she sighed, shifting in the seat.</p><p>“I’m serious,” he defended. “I like John Donne. I didn’t know he had poems, only those meditations. I read the collection once at a thing in Ireland. I remember wishing-” Castle cut off, a shake of his head that she could see from the corner of her eyes. </p><p>“Wishing what?”</p><p>“Stupid now.”</p><p>“Tell me,” she insisted, though her voice broke on it.</p><p>“Wishing I knew what it was like. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” </p><p>She sucked in a breath and felt his hand withdraw from her knee. She let go of the wheel only long enough to catch him, squeeze his fingers.</p><p>“Stupid now,” he repeated, though he left his arm on the console between them, fingers dangling as if in temptation. A test. “Because now I understand.”</p><p>“You do?”</p><p>“I am involved in mankind. Forced me to be, this, all this - opened my eyes. Those boys asleep back there. How could it not? Now I think about how the world will perceive them, what we might have to do or be for them to have something of their own, something normal, separate from the elixir and programs and Black. I think about saving money for them and what kind of personalities they have and how they’ll engage their environment. I wonder about how to build a home for them, and where to find them kids their age to make friends of. And then there’s you.”</p><p>“Me.” Her heart was fluttering like a trapped bird. He thought about how to build a home for them.</p><p>“No man is an island, entire of itself. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. You got - washed away, Kate. And I’ve been the less for it. But now...”</p><p>Oh, why did he always have to keep talking? She had to drive, damn it, and her eyes were burning and she couldn’t do anything but keep control of the Jeep.</p><p>“But anyway, I’ll have to find his poetry. Bend me by force.” His words were a murmur in the late afternoon light spilling in through the car windshield.</p><p>She hoped he didn’t look up the poem, because she had just remembered the last lines.</p><p>Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain, But am betroth’d unto your enemy; Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.</p><p>Ravish me.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle carried Wyatt while Kate held James, both boys struggling out of sleep, coming back to the world. The car ride had apparently acted like a hypnotist, because they had slept hard, and now they were groggy.</p><p>Kate was already taking James across the bridge, whispering things in his ear and brushing her lips against the top of the boy’s head. Castle realized he was watching them with no small amount of jealousy, only he wasn’t quite sure for whom he was jealous. To be held by her or to have that love poured back into him by the boy?</p><p>James was slightly more reluctant to let go with Castle, though their morning of swimming together had done a lot to bridge that gap. And while he didn’t want James to love him more, he couldn’t help that twinge of longing when James abandoned himself to her arms.</p><p>Wyatt, however, had no trouble with him. “Less discerning, huh, kid?” he sighed, dragging the bag out of the back of the Jeep. “At least your brother watches out for you.”</p><p>“Daddy,” Wyatt mumbled, stirring as Castle closed the trunk. “Eep, Daddy.”</p><p>“Yeah, we rode in the Jeep while Mommy drove.”</p><p>“Mommy?”</p><p>“She’s ahead of us. With James.”</p><p>“Mmm.”</p><p>Castle hoisted the bag onto his shoulder and thumbed the lock on the remote, hearing that satisfying whirr of the lock engaging. Wyatt patted his shoulder and leaned back against Castle, cuddling again.</p><p>“Yeah, let’s head in,” Castle said conversationally. His shorts were stiff and new, smelled like the inside of the pharmacy - alcohol and gauze and corn chips. He shifted Wyatt higher in his grip and moved for the bridge.</p><p>Kate had already disappeared inside, just that fast, and Castle hustled to catch up. Colin wasn’t home yet - the Audi had been gone - and Castle was eager to spend some time alone with Kate and the boys. Not like they hadn’t already, but to prolong their time together. Savor the magic.</p><p>And then Colin would be back to baby-sit while Castle took her to dinner. A romantic dinner, he hoped, to really show her how special she was. </p><p>When he got to the front door, he found it propped open and he slipped inside, bending over to set Wyatt on his feet. But the boy clung to him, gripping his shirt with a whine, so Castle straightened up and carried him into the living room.</p><p>He found Kate with the television remote and James standing just at her side, his little arm wound around her knee, hanging on to her while Kate searched the channels for cartoons.</p><p>“What about this one, baby?” she said, brushing her fingertips over the top of James’s head. “You like this?”</p><p>The tv screen showed live-action characters with monster puppets who were currently singing about the letter Y. James released Kate’s leg and sat down with a thump on the floor, instantly absorbed.</p><p>Kate grinned at Castle and nodded to Wyatt. “Every kid loves Sesame Street. Let him down.”</p><p>Castle tried it again and this time Wyatt was enough enthralled by the television that he let go of Castle and stood in rapt awe in the middle of the living room. Castle nudged him forward with a knee and Wyatt came to himself, crawled to James to sit beside him on the floor.</p><p>Kate dragged the boys’ blankets off the couch and draped them in their laps, ruffling heads as she left them to it. She came to Castle just behind the couch and slid her arms around his waist, leaning into him.</p><p>“Sesame Street?” he murmured.</p><p>“I watched it when I was a kid. I loved Grover. He was my favorite. But I think Elmo is doing it for them.”</p><p>“Wow.”</p><p>“Yeah, good show for kids. Alphabet, numbers, same and different, even some Spanish language stuff, from what I remember. Anyway, enough about Sesame Street. You wanna talk?”</p><p>He huffed, breaking his eyes from Sesame Street (which was fascinating really) to study her upturned face. “You don’t want to talk.”</p><p>“I will if you will.”</p><p>“What do you want to talk about?”</p><p>“Well, the rest of this. The - shrink stuff.”</p><p>“I think we’re clear - don’t you think so? Expectations are pretty low, I think-”</p><p>“What?” she cried out. “Low?”</p><p>“I mean - shit.” He felt his ears burning and rubbed his hand down his face. “Not my expectations for tonight. I meant - I don’t feel pressure from you and I hope you’re not feeling pressure from me to be anything more or different or - this is really perfect the way it is. You know?”</p><p>“Perfect,” she echoed.</p><p>He winced. “Okay, fuck. I sound like an idiot. Not perfect. This isn’t perfect. But it’s...”</p><p>“Perfect,” she whispered.</p><p>He paused, carefully searching her face.</p><p>Her lips quirked. “It is perfect, though. Of course, neither one of us would want for this to be necessary-”</p><p>“You feel pretty damn necessary to me,” he gruffed, lifting his hand to take a fistful of her hair.</p><p>“You seem determined to take me the wrong way,” she sighed. “Are you really that dense or do you just like turning my words back on me?”</p><p>“Yes.” He deadpanned it and she lifted an eyebrow. “I like telling you the truth when it seems like it’s a place where someone has told you lies about yourself, Kate. You feel necessary. You’re beautiful. The noises you make are devastating. You’re worth everything I can give.”</p><p>Kate ducked her head, shuffling closer to him. His view was occluded by the fall of her hair, but he carefully tucked a strand behind her ear, lingering at her cheek.</p><p>“But no, you’re right, honey. I wouldn’t want for any of this to have happened to you-”</p><p>“But the boys,” she said, head jerking up to look at him.</p><p>“No,” he admitted. “I can’t wish them away.”</p><p>“You love them too.”</p><p>“I love them too,” he said, thinking also, as well as you. “As you said, there are a host of things I’d remove from your story, things I wish had never been done. But having you here feels perfect to me. Yes. Even if it’s never anything more than what’s been done, even if it’s only brushing your hair behind your ear and promising my love to the boys, this is perfect.”</p><p>She took in a shaky breath and nodded to him, sliding her arms now around him so that they were pressed chest to chest. Hips bumping. </p><p>“I see what you mean,” she murmured. “Low expectations.”</p><p>He growled and cupped the back of her head. “I’ll have you know I am a sex god. You keep those expectations sky high, Kate. As far flung and remote as you can possibly think - I will fucking deliver.”</p><p>She laughed but he felt her hand traversing his side and gripping his ass before circling around to the button of his pants. “You want?”</p><p>“I want to take you to dinner.”</p><p>“But I’m hungry now - how about an appetizer?”</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle seemed willing to let her explore, the silence broken by his rough breaths, the grunt of her name. He was gripping her hips in a way that suggested what he wanted very badly to drive himself into her, to bring them together with force, but instead he just stood there.</p><p>Kate skimmed her nails across the material of his boxers, delighting in the tease, pushing a little at his fabled self-control. Which he didn’t seem to have when it came to this, as if it went straight out of his head.</p><p>She really liked that. And she knew she was touching him because she had to prove something to herself, to him, about the power she held, about what she could accomplish, but it quickly became something else entirely.</p><p>He breathed her name, plea and curse in one, and Kate eased her fingers under the elastic of his boxers.</p><p>Castle hissed as she touched him, his forehead dropping forward, and she felt the whole of his body come slanting into hers. She seemed to hold him up now, even as she lightly caressed the heated skin of his groin, flirting with the dangerous ridge of his cock but still avoiding it.</p><p>The nest of hair was curly and somehow soft, even as it tickled the tips of her fingers, and the close space in his boxers made her every touch rather clumsy, bumping into the hard planes of him - and the soft.</p><p>“Kate,” he whispered, his voice fluttering up as she ran the back of her hand at his inside thigh. Her fingers touched the side of his shaft and curled under, traced the roundness of his balls hanging between his legs. He growled and his hips bumped into her hand and she realized with a spark of lust and power that she didn’t want to let him.</p><p>She wanted to tease him and tease him and make him wait until tonight.</p><p>But how long could she tease? How much could he take?</p><p>“Don’t come,” she whispered against his jaw, sucking lightly now at the scruff of his five o’clock shadow. “You can’t come.”</p><p>“Kate.” Tight voice, his fingers gripping her hips, bruising.</p><p>“You’re not allowed to come again until tonight. When you come inside me.”</p><p>“F-fuck.” A desperation to his curse that made her belly flutter. “Kate.”</p><p>But he didn’t say please and he didn’t tell her no, he just withstood it, the slow attention of her hand.</p><p>“You tell me when I have to stop,” she murmured. “Tell me which things make you lose it.”</p><p>“Oh-kay,” he exhaled. A ragged breath in again.</p><p>“What about this?” she murmured, tracing her thumb nail down his shaft.</p><p>“It’s - okay,” he grunted.</p><p>“You can stand it?”</p><p>“Ye-es. Stand it. I can - stand it.”</p><p>She hummed at his ear and licked his earlobe into her mouth, nipping with her teeth. A reward for answering. And then she thumbed the underside of his cock roughly, dragging back to his root. “And that?”</p><p>“Like - like that a lot,” he moaned.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>A furious nod against her, his jaw knocking into her mouth. She kissed him again and let her  thumb circle his base, wide and thick, and then her hand came around him, gripping firmly.</p><p>He let out a sigh, something that sounded like relief. “That’s better. That helps.”</p><p>“Relieves the pressure?”</p><p>“Stalls out the urgency,” he murmured. His lips found her neck now and traveled kisses across her throat to her other side, and she was lost for a moment in the way his mouth made her wet, her eyes closing to the feel of his intent.</p><p>And then she released his cock and dragged her looped fingers down his shaft to the head.</p><p>He growled and rocked his hips against her. She smiled and opened her eyes. “That?”</p><p>“Makes me anxious for you,” he grumbled.</p><p>She slid a finger around and around the tip of him, and then nudged her thumb into the slit at his head. <br/>Castle shouted and jerked violently in her grip, crushing her head to his shoulder with the force of his reflexes. “Fuck, fuck, Kate.”</p><p>“That’s a good one, huh?”</p><p>“Can’t. Can’t. Gonna come if you do that again.”</p><p>She grinned and slanted her lips over his, rewarding him once more for his honesty, the brutal and broken down way he spilled his guts to her. She kissed him deeply, tongue plundering his mouth, and he stood there and took it, moaning into her possessiveness.</p><p>She worked her hand back down to his root and circled, and Castle came alive again, more control equaling more push against her, his dominance flaring to her life under her hand.</p><p>The kiss began to ease, and her lips were raw and numbed when she pulled back from him, staring up at his thunderstruck face, the dark and swirling lust in the blown pupils of his eyes. Ringed by that rich and vibrant blue, his stare down at her made her feel alive.</p><p>“More,” he husked. “Touch me again. Touch me until I can’t take it.”</p><p>She blinked in the face of his craven want, his unexpected along-for-the-ride, and yet her hand drifted down to his balls, ready to play.</p><p>At his strangled noise, and the roll of his eyes his head was thrown back, she felt her smile grow wider, her grip a little more intense.</p><p>And so she played with him.</p><p>-----</p><p>“S-stop. Stop. You - have to - stop.”</p><p>Her hands withdrew immediately, and Castle groaned, falling back to the kitchen table, crashing into the chairs and sending one tilting. Kate yelped and grabbed for him, for the chair, managed to catch at least one.</p><p>Both boys called her name when the chair crashed, twin echoes of mama? that made Castle stiffen - where he wasn’t already - and struggle upright.</p><p>She gripped his hip to help, but he growled and scuttled away from her, his hands in fists and his eyes screwed tightly shut, and she realized he was so very close that he couldn’t stand to have her touch him.</p><p>Kate tried not to feel blindingly proud, but she couldn’t suppress it, and the baleful look and the boys rounding the couch to blink and stare between them only made her laugh.</p><p>“Daddy?” Wyatt said, tilting his head.</p><p>Kate hurried forward, shooing the boys ahead of her. “Daddy is just fine. We were playing. Hey, let’s find Big Bird and Elmo, guys. Come on.” She had to nudge her knee into Wyatt’s head to get him to stop staring at his daddy, guiding them away from what could become a a natural disaster.</p><p>She settled the boys on the couch, hoping it might slow them down next time, and realized, meanwhile, that her shirt was rucked up and the button of her jeans popped open, one bra strap down her shoulder and something gaping - he might have popped one of the clasps already.</p><p>When had he done that?</p><p>Kate gathered the boys’ blankets and wrapped each in his own scrap of soft fabric, her heart fluttering when she saw James curl into his, cuddling up to it. She found the rag doll and bunny on the floor and nestled them in with the boys, ducking their heads as she passed, heading back for Castle.</p><p>He was sitting on a chair before the kitchen table, elbows on his knees, head bowed, taking deep breaths.</p><p>She hummed and touched the back of his neck, and he yelped and shivered under her fingers.</p><p>“Sorry,” she murmured.</p><p>“Liar. You’re not sorry at all.”</p><p>“Nope. Not one bit.”</p><p>He growled and wrapped an arm around her thigh, tugging her over and into him. She laughed softly and combed her fingers through his hair, his head pressed against her stomach, and yet she still felt the rigid heat of him, the tension in his body.</p><p>“You could take a shower,” she offered. “We both probably need them, after the lake.”</p><p>“But you said I couldn’t come until tonight.”</p><p>“Ah,” she said, and hearing it out of her own mouth made her realize it was one of his sounds. “You usually take care of things in the shower?”</p><p>“Yes. And if you’re there too-”</p><p>“Well, won’t that be fun.”</p><p>“I could touch you,” he growled, his head coming up. He pinned her with a dark look, the blue of his eyes the blue of his balls. “Like you did to me when you couldn’t come. I could make you come again and again until I felt better.”</p><p>“Oh, that will make you feel better?”</p><p>“It’s worth a shot,” he said eagerly, all happy puppy now as he got his feet. And of course he knew what he’d done, because his hand went straight to her unbuttoned jeans and dipped down her panties, resting over her pubic hair. “Want to help me out here?”</p><p>“By helping me out?”</p><p>“Mmm.”</p><p>“Thought - thought you said it would make me - raw.”</p><p>“Oh.” A long sigh, an experimental swipe of his fingers. She squeaked and went up on her toes, and he growled at her ear, sucking a kiss against her jaw. “You’re so fucking wet, Kate Beckett. Hell, does it get you off to torture me?”</p><p>“Ye-es,” she rattled, closing her eyes to the invasion of his fingers. Filling her. Sliding high.</p><p>“You’re so hot,” he rasped. Another sucking kiss at her neck, fierce, teeth, stinging. “You’re so hot and eager for me, how much you want me, how much you want to touch and hold and drive me crazy.”</p><p>“Are you crazy yet?” she panted. “Because I am.”</p><p>He caught her clit with his thumb and she whimpered, hips stuttering and knees giving way. He held her up with an arm and worked his fingers inside her even as he crushed her clit and she was coming, cracking apart with the insistent force of his will.</p><p>“I was right,” he purred in her ear. “I feel better already.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Responsibility had kicked in and someone had to be out there with the babies, so Castle sent her on ahead of him to take a shower and wash the lake off. He sat on the couch with the boys and became so absorbed in Sesame Street that he didn’t notice Kate was through until she touched the top of his head.</p><p>He startled and looked up at her, drawing her fingers through his hair because of it. </p><p>“Ew, stiff,” she murmured.</p><p>He blinked and struggled up from the couch, still half-hard and aching (and yes, stiff), especially at seeing her before him, fresh from the shower and wet hair hanging to her shoulders. She made a face at him for his still mud-crusted hair and he didn’t dare even touch her - too clean, and himself too hard.</p><p>“Castle?” she said as he passed.</p><p>“Yeah?” He turned at the doorway and she glanced once to the boys and then back to him. </p><p>“You can - take care of things, you know. If you want.”</p><p>He straightened up. “No. Turn about is fair play.”</p><p>Her cheeks burned bright, but he saw something pleased in her eyes as he turned around and headed for his own shower.</p><p>He made it fast, and bitterly cold, and it helped a little bit. His cock shrank, anyway, even if his lust for her didn’t, and by the time he got out and dried off, he thought he had it under control.</p><p>And then he came back out to the living room and found her asleep on the couch with the boys curled up around her. James and Wyatt were awake, one boy tangled in her legs and the other resting against her hip.</p><p>He sighed to himself and sank down to the end of the couch, lightly touched the arch of her foot where it was pushed back to the cushion. She didn't so much as twitch, though James lifted his head from her hip and watched him for a moment, cautious or curious, Castle couldn't tell.</p><p>"Mama's asleep," he said softly. "You guys want to give her some space? I can take her to bed and you can watch tv."</p><p>"No," Wyatt said clearly, wriggling his body deeper into the tangle of Kate's legs. "No, no, no."</p><p>"Okay, alright," Castle hushed, smoothing a hand down Wyatt's back. "You can stay. Mama will stay. Everyone together. I get it."</p><p>She would be horrified that she'd fallen asleep with the way things had gone for her lately, but he was happy to let her stay this way. She obviously needed it. And despite downing pedialyte for every meal and nursing twice a day, he wasn't sure just how well she was metabolizing the elixir. </p><p>Still, a nap wasn't unheard of in a normal course of the day. Especially for a woman who'd had a miscarriage, a botched D&amp;C, and then a long road trip to escape from a facility that was in effect a prison.</p><p>She deserved some sleep. </p><p>And he wanted her well rested for their dinner tonight. As he'd said, he had low expectations for their night but for their dinner - he realized a lot was riding on just how well he could make her feel his love for her.</p><p>He was completely content to watch a little television with the boys, keep it low-key and relaxed until dinner. She would probably nurse them before they left, and he would draw her blood and check her levels just to be sure, but that would leave tonight wide open for anything she might want to do. Or not do. </p><p>It was up to her.</p><p>Castle shifted deeper into the couch cushions until he could lay his hand on her hip, his thumb stroking the top of James's head, Wyatt's little body pressed into Castle's now as well. Wyatt didn't leave his spot behind Kate's knees, though he seemed to accept Castle's place beside him on the couch, his little feet digging in under Castle's thigh. The television showed a big furry elephant-like puppet and a tall yellow bird, but since both boys were rapt, Castle was content to leave everyone as they were.</p><p>Now that he was sitting here, Castle noticed the way Kate had curled up on herself, almost into that protective ball, so that Wyatt was forward on the couch at her knees and James was pressed between her lower back and the cushions. He effectively had his arm around both boys, leaning in as he was, and he began to wonder if James felt her sleep was disturbed. Touching like this...</p><p>But usually Castle himself felt something of it if that was the case. Well, something of it if he was touching her, which he was now, so surely he would know? Surely James would know, this close to her, and signal somehow?</p><p>He rubbed his thumb against the boy's head and felt nothing. Nothing but deep contentment. And that wasn't from Castle alone, he knew that much. The boys were impressions, like butterfly wings against his skin, a ripple on the water. Sometimes, especially if James was unhappy, Castle felt the boy like an ache in his jaw from a blow half-healed - not irritating but simply present, a bruise too often touched. James gave resonance to the feelings the boys experienced, as if his portion of the elixir had allowed a tunnel to be built between him and his family.</p><p>His family.</p><p>Fuck, sometimes it crashed over Castle so vividly - these boys were his sons. His sons, and Kate was tied to him for all eternity, tangled in threads neither of them had made.</p><p>His sons, and his father had sterilized him long ago so that he alone had control of who and what and when. </p><p>Would Black have ever told him? Or would Castle have been pulled aside and asked to train two young men of promise, do what you can with these. He'd trained a few recruits over the years, always always with the warning to each soldier you have to learn to be your own man under him or you won't survive. He had warned them, he had always warned them, you don't know what you're getting into. He had always explained the demands, the survival rate, and yet his father had always had volunteers for his experiments.</p><p>Had Eastman ever warned her? Had Eastman ever tried to help her, to give her anything at all? Everyone knew what kind of taskmaster John Black had been. They all knew, and yet Eastman had left her alone to him with nothing.</p><p>Nothing but the skills and battle planning to fucking kill John Black. </p><p>No small thing, when he looked at it like that.</p><p>Castle sucked in a deep breath and tilted his head back to the couch, caught in a feedback loop he couldn't seem to break free from. Black. The man was on his mind, hunched like a vulture picking over the ruined and mangled carcass of every good and clean thought Castle had ever had about the woman asleep on their couch.</p><p>He couldn't untangle it. His father had chosen. His father had taken that completely out of Castle's hands - his own life, his family, his essence - and he had chosen. </p><p>And fuck if he hadn't chosen the one woman in all creation that Castle had ever wanted.</p><p>There was a terror in him over that. He was making the same choices his father had made. He was no different than Black; he was going to be the same bastard all over again. He would never be able to break-</p><p>"Daddy?" </p><p>Castle jerked his hand back from Kate, so startled by the little voice that he almost knocked his elbow into James. His son, who had called his name.</p><p>"Daddy, me," James said this time, and now came crawling into his lap - right over Wyatt and Kate's legs and onto Castle's thighs.</p><p>Castle - for a long moment - only sat stunned. And then his hands dropped to cradle his son against his chest, a palm that fit perfectly to the back of James's hand, and another palm to the round bottom, holding him, holding on to him.</p><p>Wyatt, whose feet were at Castle's thigh, kicked at his brother's leg and babbled nonsense. But James turned his head away from Wyatt - and from his view of his mother - and settled down into Castle's chest to watch the television.</p><p>Castle couldn't help but glancing to Kate, as if to share it with her, but she was still curled in on herself in sleep. Something troubled, something unhappy about the set of her brow and the way her face was buried in the cushions, now that James had left her side.</p><p>And he wondered if that was his own fault.</p><p>-----</p><p>She was lying on her side, knees pulled up as far as they would go, only one wrist restrained this time, her other arm pulled in tightly to her chest. Lights glared overhead in the room, but the sickly spinning wouldn’t stop.</p><p>She swallowed, throat dry, and slowly closed her eyes.</p><p>Didn’t seem to help. Didn’t change anything. The weight lay heavy in her pelvic bones, pressing down like a thumb on a bruise, and her breasts ached. And ached. So badly. Like that first year of high school when she’d stayed home with cramps, surprised at how compassionate her mom had been about it (I know, I know it’s real, just for today, and then from now on, you’ll have to go to school.) </p><p>But she hadn’t gotten her period this time. Or last time. Or the time before that. And as she scrambled desperately to remember just one time when she’d had the blood slicking between her legs, she couldn’t. Couldn’t.</p><p>Cross country practice had always done it to her too. She hadn’t thought. Hadn’t wanted to think, God, hadn’t begun to think that he’d do that to her.</p><p>Her eyes flared open. “What is this?” she snarled towards the wall. “Suicide watch?”</p><p>A slow chuckle. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. He was there, as she knew he would be. Just out of her sight. But he’d left the mic on in the observation room. He was behind the dark glass.</p><p>“If you thought I’d do it, you asshole, you should’ve velcroed both my arms.”</p><p>The chuckle tailed off into that hum of appreciation (appreciation? Oh God), but no other words came.</p><p>With the single sheet still pulled up over her body, she furtively unfurled her fist and brushed down to her stomach.</p><p>God.</p><p>She closed her eyes fast, shaking, sick, grinding her back molars and the inside of her cheeks to keep him from seeing any of it.</p><p>It was true, true, true. She couldn’t deny it any longer, couldn’t keep pretending that the weight, the ache, were anything else.</p><p>“Just observing, K.”</p><p>She couldn’t suppress the shudder that racked her frame, the thin sheet doing nothing to hide it. And the noise he made from beyond the glass only made her furious, made her throw off the damn sheet and expose her body to whatever twisted mind games he wanted to play.</p><p>Let him. She’d play his game and she would win.</p><p>Her belly seemed obscene under the lights, pulling the t-shirt taut. Unmistakable. “I didn’t know you were into immaculate conception, you pervert.”</p><p>There was a slam and then the door came open, and she saw the crack in his face - but only back behind the cold glass wall of his eyes, a vein of darkness where beasts of the deep seethed at the exposure.</p><p>He took two striding steps into the room before he halted. Well away from the hospital bed she was restrained to, had woken up in after another round of IV ‘treatments.’</p><p>Treatment. </p><p>“You know that I have better things to do,” he said smoothly, but that very collected air was a warning she wouldn’t heed.</p><p>“Better things? Do you have little boys on the other side of that glass?”</p><p>He jerked forward and caught the end of the velcro strap, slamming her wrist into the raised bar. She bit back a cry, her bones echoing with the pain, but he had already gathered himself again, released the strap with a quality of attention that had always unnerved her.</p><p>Studying. A bug in a jar.</p><p>She slowly withdrew her throbbing wrist into the cove of her body, flinched when her elbow bumped the rise of her stomach.</p><p>His eyes were unholy on her, tracing a slow and possessive caress over the curve of her abdomen.</p><p>Possessive. His creation. His to do with as he liked. His.</p><p>His?</p><p>She sucked in a desperate breath, certain the weight of his gaze was suffocating her.</p><p>Her heart thundered in her mouth, throbbed behind her eyes.</p><p>His.</p><p>It was his. It was - his. All the treatments. The drugs and procedures done in the darkness, losing consciousness only to wake restrained and aching in places she hadn’t wanted to think about.</p><p>He wasn’t making her into an elite fighting force. He wasn’t training her.</p><p>He was breeding her.</p><p>-----</p><p>One of these things is not like the other, one of these things doesn’t belong.</p><p>James was humming it in time to the song.</p><p>Castle snapped his head back to the television and saw the strange moving scenes on the children’s show, four quadrants, associational thinking.</p><p>He snorted in amusement, tugging James’s ear. “Hey, pay attention, kid. This is good spy training. Wyatt, buddy, you watching this?”</p><p>He turned to glance at Wyatt, and froze.</p><p>Kate’s eyes were open, horror filling her face in a frozen scream.</p><p>“Kate.” He hurtled to his feet, crushing James to his chest; he yanked Wyatt up by his arm, swinging both boys away from her and dumping them on the floor by the coffee table. “Stay.”</p><p>Round eyes stared back at him, just as frozen as their mother.</p><p>Castle jerked back to Kate on the couch, dropping to his knees at her side and reaching out-</p><p>She screamed. Screamed and flailed violently away, but her eyes were vacant. Completely gone.</p><p>She was inside a nightmare; she was screaming at horrors inside her head. The sound burst through his ear drums and rattled inside his bones, and behind him, James began to yell, echoing her terror with a stomach-turning desperation. And then Wyatt set off, wailing, while Kate was practically climbing the back of the couch in blind anguish. </p><p>Castle reacted on instinct.</p><p>He dove on top of her, muffling her thrashing with his own body, pinning her hips and thighs to the couch and now wrestling her arms down to the cushions. Her terror escalated for one brief, sickening moment, and then she sobbed.</p><p>“Kate, Kate, Kate,” he heard himself chanting, stroking her cheeks and temples, holding her under him. “Kate, honey, oh sweetheart, it’s okay. You’re okay. Baby, wake up now, time to wake up.”</p><p>Her grief broke the surface first, her sobs became weeping, and when she struggled a hand out and pressed it over her eyes, his relief snapped inside him.</p><p>He shifted to get off of her, mortified by how quickly he had chosen to restrain her (his own fucking instincts were so very wrong for her), but before he could lift up, she snaked her other arm around his neck and held him crazy-strong against her.</p><p>His face was practically buried in her hair, but he turned his head and kissed her wet cheek, the river under her eye. “It’s okay, honey. You’re okay. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. A very bad dream. It’s okay now.”</p><p>She was still sobbing, her grip so tight that her nails were digging into his shoulder and piercing his skin through his shirt. She couldn’t see to catch her breath, but every time he moved to give her space, she cried harder and seemed to choke on it, struggling in her effort to keep him.</p><p>He stopped trying to raise his body from hers, moved instead to lie them both on their sides - but with her spine to the back of the couch so that she still felt safe. Protected.</p><p>After a long while, Castle felt her drawing in on herself, her arms pulling in to her chest, her knees trying to come up. When he shifted back, she had a hand on her stomach and the other over her mouth as if to - what?</p><p>Hold it all in.</p><p>He cupped her face and stroked damp hair away from her mouth and eyes. Little wet strands, tear-soaked, the salt beginning to make it stiff behind her ears. “Oh, honey. I’ve got you now. You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”</p><p>She nodded, her hand still over her mouth, but he lightly touched her knuckles, hooked her pinky, and slowly withdrew her self-restraint. She let out a noise, shuddering, but this time she threw her arm around his neck and surged into him.</p><p>Castle eagerly took her into his arms, embracing her tightly, whispering into her hair. “I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen to you, Kate.” He petted down her hair, smoothing it over her shoulders and neck, down her skull, gentling her.</p><p>“What-” Her voice cracked when she started and he felt her whine, shuddering, before she tried again. “Why are they crying?”</p><p>He choked on a laugh, hysteria bubbling in him, and turned his head to look at the boys still crying before the coffee table.</p><p>But they hadn’t moved an inch. </p><p>“Shit,”he breathed, turning only to bring Kate against his chest so he could open an arm to the boys. “James. Wyatt. Come here. Come here, Mommy needs you.”</p><p>“Castle,” she moaned, but it was too late. The boys were scrambling to their feet and running for the couch, where they both gripped the cushions and hauled themselves up without any help at all. “Oh, God.” Her voice wavered. The boys crashed on top of her, both of them whimpering at her neck, her chest, a hot, tight, wriggling mass over Castle as well.</p><p>“Okay, we’re all okay,” Castle said quietly, one arm around Kate, one around both boys. “Scary, but we’re here. We’re not there. Are we, Kate? We’re not there.”</p><p>“Not - not back there,” she gulped.</p><p>So she had been dreaming about the facility.</p><p>“He’s dead,” Castle said firmly.</p><p>She choked off a sob and buried her face in his neck. The boys huddled into her, James still deeply distressed while Wyatt seemed more melodramatic, sensing something wrong but not knowing it had nothing to do with him.</p><p>James knew.</p><p>Castle laid his hand on James’s head, remembering that moment on the couch not but twenty minutes ago, and he purposefully went deep into his meditation exericses.</p><p>Visualized the pure white space. Visualized the black dot, the black and steady dot. Held it there in his mind.</p><p>Breathe.</p><p>James gasped and sucked in a breath of his own, broken rhythm of his sobs, and Kate gave a great shuddering sigh.</p><p>Slowly, she wound her arm around both boys, lifting her head to kiss first Wyatt and then, finally, James. A long, long moment, her lips to the boy’s wet cheek, until James himself juddered with the last of his tears and sank into Castle’s chest.</p><p>-----</p><p>She couldn't stop shaking. Just when she thought it was done and she was exhausted and might fall back to sleep, another tremor wracked her frame and chattered her teeth.</p><p>At least James and Wyatt had settled. They were affected but not scarred. At least that. She was still struggling to keep hold of everything, but so far none of her terror leaked out to them.</p><p>Castle stroked her neck with two fingers, every stroke bringing her back to orient around him, the day, this moment on the couch. In between, that pause of mere seconds when his fingers lifted to start again, she spun out into dizzying darkness. And then he landed, the top of her neck, and she could breathe.</p><p>"We're all okay," he rumbled. "We're all okay."</p><p>She had yet to be able to believe him, but she wanted to. Desperately wanted to.</p><p>She let out another breath and this time his fingers buried in her hair, cradling her skull. His lips ghosted the top of her head. "Tell me about it?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Yes," he said softly. So softly, tenderness bleeding the edges of his raw voice. "You were screaming. Awake, but not awake. You didn't seem to see me there at all. Who did you see?"</p><p>She shuddered.</p><p>"You saw him. Black."</p><p>"Hands," she croaked, and his fingers gripped her hair in a knot, released, smoothed. "Hands are the same."</p><p>Castle froze.</p><p>She tangled up on the boys trying to reach for him, but she managed to catch his thumb before he could withdraw, pulled her hand into him. Into her chest, his fingers at her lips. "No," she sighed. "Don't go."</p><p>"I remind you-"</p><p>"Not you." Something like relief began to melt across the taut muscles of her back. Cool as ice water. "Never you."</p><p>His knuckle nudged her chin and she tilted her head up, found his soft kiss. Heat bloomed inside her, matching the heat where he pressed against her. She'd always been cold there, back there. Always cold. Not now. He was always warm. Blood warm.</p><p>"Tell me about him," Castle said. Lips brushing hers, against her nose, her forehead. Lips and his breath, warm. "Tell me what you see when you don't see me."</p><p>"I don't want to," she admitted.</p><p>"Shrink stuff," he murmured against her temple. "Helps. Promise it does. Maybe not at first, but you get this stuff out and loses its power over you. Out there now, not in here."</p><p>"Can't. James will feel-"</p><p>"He won't," Castle sighed. He sounded almost mournful. "I hoped he would. A little barometer. But he doesn't pick up on it, or you shut off so well. And like I said, talking about it frees you. Diffuses the emotion. I've had thirty years of this, love. I promise it will help."</p><p>There was no way to start. "I won't - won't bring that into now. Here. In front of them."</p><p>"Bring what into now. You have to say something. You have to."</p><p>"Bring him. He's dead. I'm not reanimating him." But she realized she was burying her chin in his hand, curling herself around Castle rather than her own body. Needing him. Wanting him. And sex was the furthest thing from her mind.</p><p>"Okay, alright. Work around it. Tell me where. And what events were going on in the dream. Hands reaching for you-"</p><p>"No." But even as she resisted, it was informative denial as well. And her mouth went on despite her. "No, no one ever reached for me."</p><p>His arm tightened around her. Around the boys too because Wyatt squawked. But even his wriggling defiance couldn't shake the cloud over her.</p><p>"I woke up. From a test. A - procedure but - I hadn't let them - there was a moment to slip the mask off right before and so I didn't get all of the gas and I woke."</p><p>"Woke in the dream."</p><p>"Not a dream," she sighed. Not even close to the dream yet. "This is just... backstory."</p><p>He grunted and gripped the nape of her neck. "Backst-" Castle growled a curse and Wyatt whined at him, resettling against Kate's knee. "This is memory."</p><p>"I - yes. It happened." </p><p>"Tell me."</p><p>"It's just that I - didn't know anything. And then I woke up in the middle and saw the ultrasound machine and my stomach was cold with gel and I wanted it to be a dream. I wished it were a dream. When I woke again, in the room, one of my wrists restrained, the soft velcro. I could reach - I could've taken it off - I didn't and he knew. Someone told him I'd opened my eyes during the - I remember the heartbeat in the room, warm inside the cold, and how terrified - but then he was there when I woke, watching me from the window. Watching me."</p><p>"You saw - saw the babies on the - on the ultrasound?"</p><p>"No, I... just all a blur. I didn't know two. I just - thought - one was bad enough." She shuddered and closed her eyes, pressing her forehead to his jaw, breathing against the hard nudge of his ribs and the band of his arm. So different. All of this. Warm and alternating between hard and soft. Soft skin, hair, the tight cord of muscle that she could move under her fingers, back and forth over his chest until he twitched.</p><p>"And that was your dream?"</p><p>"Him there. And how - how - I can't-"</p><p>"You can, you can, honey. It will lose its power over you if you give voice-"</p><p>"It will grow ugly wings and fly-"</p><p>"No, baby." Was he laughing? He was laughing. "No, oh God. That's - good. Ugly wings and fly. Maybe it will. Let it grow wings and get the fuck out of our lives. We don't want it."</p><p>She released a breath, found it creaking around in her too. Not laughter but something. "I..."</p><p>"He was there, but you know what? So were Wyatt and James. These fierce little things that you kept safe, that you saved. That saved you, wanted you so much they fought for you too, you know. Three against one then. You didn't know it, but you know now. Three against one."</p><p>She knew now. She did know. How much they had saved her. She had survived for them, and it was only a dream now. It was a dream and she wasn't there. All she had to do was remember - the sound of that heartbeat on the monitor was in reality these two squirming, warm little boys who wanted just to be near her, just to press their cheeks to her leg, and they were content.</p><p>"Three against one. Four against one. By their genetics alone, Kate, you had me. All of us together. That moment. From that moment. And what did he have? He had nothing. He lost you, he lost his experiments, lost two boys who he thought he'd control. He had nothing."</p><p>Genetics alone. His genetics, the warp of his hands in her memory's dream - not the hands that stroked and cradled and held her now. Genetics alone couldn't create this.</p><p>"And I love you," he murmured. "Don't respond, honey, just breathe. Just know. I met you and my life changed forever. Not just because you carried my sons, but because it was you. You standing there, so triumphant, so challenging, so mystifying, so beautiful. Gorgeous, strong. Tall. Damn, woman, you are tall. Perfect height for me."</p><p>A giggle released from her lungs, choking in her throat. Genetics alone-</p><p>"And here we are. He's dead. Here we are. We have everything. From that moment, he kissed his own death. He won't ever reach out for you again, not even with my hands."</p><p>"No," she got out. "No. He doesn't. He won't. Just you. It's only you."</p><p>His fingers light against her eyebrows. "Only me, love. Isn't that better now? Now that it's out there. Starts to fade."</p><p>She wasn't sure of that, only of the way the terror dissipated every time his fingers stroked some new place on her skin. Forehead, cheek, jaw, neck. Her nape, her shoulder, the back of her arm. Elbow. Wrist. Soothing, smooth, all along her wrist.</p><p>She was going to fall asleep.</p><p>She hoped the darkness was gone.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She never fall back to sleep, though he supposed she dozed, in and out, twitches of her fingers and the occasional jerk of an arm. Compact, defensive, her body still hard with leftover tension, though the more he stroked down her back, the more she came out of it.</p><p>The more aware she became as well.</p><p>And then Kate groaned and hid her face against his shoulder and she was back, through the haze of memory and nightmare, and on this side of it with him. Embarrassed? He hoped only that, and not ashamed. </p><p>Castle shifted their bodies until he could half-recline against the arm, James crawling up to curl in their combined laps, Wyatt climbing like a monkey along her arm and back. </p><p>"Careful, boys, Wyatt, kiddo. Don't break her."</p><p>"Won't break," she growled. </p><p>"I stand corrected. Mommy won't break. Wyatt, have at it. See if you can't smother her too. We'll knock it all out in one go. Up here, son. Yeah, you got it."</p><p>She grunted and lifted her head to him, but he only flashed her a smile in return. Her glare was interrupted by Wyatt attempting to climb her neck, and Castle had to release James to lift Wyatt bodily from her.</p><p>"You're an ass," she muttered, flicking his ear with her fingers.</p><p>"And you have completely unreasonable expectations for yourself, Kate Beckett. Plus you didn't tell me the rest of your dream - don't think I didn't notice - which gives you mad skills in the evasion department. Better than me. But guess what? You and me? We're going to tell this story to our kids - our kids, Kate - and they will know exactly how fierce and brave and strong their mother is, and how much she did for them. So no. No, Wyatt, you can't climb her like a jungle gym, son. Follow James's lead and treat her with respect."</p><p>Kate's jaw dropped.</p><p>Castle was manhandling her, running roughshod, and he knew it, but she was entirely too adept at slipping between his fingers. He had to get a little rough just to get a grip on her. But he focused on the kids first, because he knew the backdoor into her heart was through them.</p><p>"Wyatt, what did I say, son? You can be close to Mommy, no one is taking her away, but you have to be considerate."</p><p>"He's fine," she mumbled.</p><p>Castle settled Wyatt next to his brother in their laps, James over one of her hips and lying against her chest while Wyatt got relegated to mostly Castle's shoulder and some of Kate's stomach. "See? You're still touching her. We all have to share. Well - you two have to share - and then I get Mommy all to myself because I'm special."</p><p>Kate huffed, a flick of her eyes upwards to him, but she was stroking her fingers through Wyatt's hair, soothing him for his number two spot on her lap. "Don't listen to Daddy. You're special to me, too, baby. You and James and Daddy. Wouldn't be here otherwise."</p><p>Perfect transition. Castle took it and ran. "You are both very special boys. And this is a story we're going to tell you, as often as we can, in the morning when you're sleepy and warm, or at lunch when you're hungry and maybe you've forgotten how important Mommy is-"</p><p>"Castle-"</p><p>"And in the afternoon, right before naptime, I'll whisper your story so that it follows you down to sleep-"</p><p>"A bedtime story," she murmured. "Just at bedtime. Once is enough."</p><p>"A bedtime story?" He glanced at her, warmed by the way she was growing to accept it. Her story - it wasn't shameful, no need to be embarrassed - and it wasn't a nightmare. Not any longer. "Bedtime story, huh. That's a thing? Like a lullaby. We'll do that. A lullaby story for you boys every night."</p><p>"Oh, God," she moaned. "You break my heart sometimes, Castle."</p><p>He paused, mouth opening and then closing again, bewildered.</p><p>She lifted her chin and kissed his cheek, a chaste thing that felt weird. "Never mind. A bedtime story, Castle. How does it start?"</p><p>"With you," he whispered. "Everything starts with you."</p><p>She dropped her head to his shoulder but Wyatt squirmed and tried to reach past his brother. But James growled and body blocked him, clinging to Kate's shirt with a fist.</p><p>Kate chuckled and dropped her hand on top of James's head. "Did you learn that from Daddy? I never heard you growl before."</p><p>"Oh, shit," he muttered. "I'm - teaching them things."</p><p>She laughed again and raised her eyes to him. "We're teaching them things every day, Castle. What'd you think we were doing?"</p><p>His chest tightened. "I... bad things. I teach them-"</p><p>"No." Now her hand came to his shirt, and she fisted the material, yanking until his eyes dropped to meet hers. "No. You are not teaching them bad things. Not at all. Not you. You are entirely the opposite of everything in my nightmares."</p><p>His lungs felt shredded with every breath but he believed her. He was beginning to believe her. It just hurt how much she had been hurt. It hurt. And he didn't like feeling so damn aching.</p><p>"Does that mean I'm the man of your dreams?"</p><p>She laughed, cupping his face in her hand, and her laughter fell into his mouth even as she kissed him. "Yes," she whispered. "Yes. I guess it does, Rick Castle. Now finish telling your story so I can edit it for content."</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate was stroking her fingers at his collarbone. He wondered if she realized it.</p><p>“Once upon a time,” he began slowly. </p><p>The truth of it was, he didn’t know her story. She would have to do more than edit for content. But he hoped as he went along, with his prompting, she would supply the plot points if only he could find the words.</p><p>“There was Kate,” he decided. This was the boys’ story as well as hers, and it was better to start with known facts. “She was brave and beautiful and sometimes a little goofy too. Like you guys, so you come by it honestly-”</p><p>Her elbow dug into his ribs and he huffed, grinning down at her.</p><p>“-but most importantly, she was a New York City girl. Her favorite museum was...”</p><p>“The Met,” she whispered, head ducking back to his chest.</p><p>He grinned. “And her favorite color was...”</p><p>A little huff against her chest. “Purple. Get on with the story, Castle.”</p><p>“Hey, now. I’m telling the important parts.”</p><p>“They don’t know what the Met is.”</p><p>“They will. We’ll take them. Now, back to my story. Kate had gone to California for college, a whole semester of sun and surf, and apparently dorky science fiction shows-”</p><p>Another elbow in the ribs, but now she was hiding her face. He was close to the hard parts, and he could tell she was bracing herself.</p><p>“One Christmas she was back in her city on break, and she and her mom - you boys will know all about her, one day. Mommy will tell you everything, all the good times they had and how - how her mom used to smell and what songs she sang at bedtime-”</p><p>“Stories,” she mumbled, a fist in his shirt. “She told me bedtime stories.”</p><p>“Stories,” he whispered. He had no idea if his own mother had ever... he had no idea. “Your mommy will tell you bedtime stories just like the ones her mommy told her.”</p><p>Her shoulders were up around her ears, her nose a hard contact point against his armpit. Castle brushed a hand over James’s head, wishing for an insight, something from his sensitive son to prove he was doing the right thing. But James only kittened into his hand, and Castle had to trust that he himself knew what to do for her.</p><p>“A terrible thing happened,” he sighed, petting James back down to Kate’s chest. “A bad man killed her mommy and took your mommy away.”</p><p>Kate growled into his shirt, grief in the rumbling of her chest.</p><p>He cupped the back of Wyatt’s head to calm the boy, prevent him from climbing over his brother again. “But Mommy was so brave, and even though she was very sad, she knew she had to be smart if she was going to get back home again.”</p><p>Kate’s fists tightened in his shirt, her teeth against him. </p><p>“And then the bad man traded-” Fuck. Fuck, how was he going to get through this? “-traded Mommy to another bad man, an evil scientist named Black. And that - that’s your - that’s my father. But his name was true; he was black to his soul. Black hearted. But Mommy was so brave, boys. How smart and brave she was.”</p><p>“Castle.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” he got out. “We’re okay. This is important.” </p><p>“Babies - babies shouldn’t hear this,” she groaned, words muffled.</p><p>“It’s no worse than a fairy tale, sweetheart. Evil villain and everything. Only this is one princess who saves herself.”</p><p>She shook her head no against him, hair falling, but he knew it had to be spoken aloud, get it out there. And as much as it felt like swallowing glass to speak, if he didn’t do it, she never would.</p><p>“Hey, boys, you ready? This evil scientist tested Mommy at first, wanting to see how fast she was, how smart and clever, how strong. And Mommy was so very strong that it impressed the evil scientist. It made him think he could use someone like Mommy. So he did.”</p><p>“Oh, God,” she whispered.</p><p>“Your turn, Mommy,” he murmured, stroking her back lightly, combing her hair with his fingers. Arranging it over her shoulders. “What happened then, Mommy?”</p><p>“He - he...” She swallowed and turned her head so that her cheek was mashed against his shoulder, her eyes cast down to the boys. Half sitting up like this, they were in a messy pile at one corner of the couch, but both Wyatt and James held her full attention.</p><p>Her finger traced over James’s ear.</p><p>“He put - these special vitamins in my blood. I had new blood and a special diet and I could train - doing exercises and karate and lots of physical work. I had - he called it the elixir, and it turns out that your daddy - he has it too. And so after a year, Black - the evil scientist, I mean - he made it so that I was close enough to your daddy that I could be - be used for a special project.”</p><p>Castle realized his whole body had locked down tight, his fist in her hair, and he had to loosen his fingers and consciously relax. The white field of vision, the glowing black dot in the center of his view, hold the floating dot steady.</p><p>Hold it steady.</p><p>“Castle,” she whispered.</p><p>“Yes,” he ground out. “Yes, the - special project was - was you. Both of you. Very special. And - and...”</p><p>“He had you made in his lab,” Kate got out. “I guess? I don’t know, Castle, I have no idea what-”</p><p>“I know,” he croaked. “I know. We’ll figure it out. It’s in the medical charts. It’s - you’re right. In the lab. You were little test tube babies, my little babies, and in order - to make you grow into big and strong boys, he made Mommy carry you for awhile.”</p><p>She was trembling.</p><p>He was trembling. </p><p>The boys were very quiet and hunkered down, as if they both knew some kind of trauma was being relived, being enacted right this moment, just to put words to it. Castle had to do this, had to show Kate that it did no damn good hiding this shit and burying it. </p><p>Hiding it, burying it had been her only way to cope, but now it was breaking down inside her, breaking down and blowing up, and it couldn’t go on like that.</p><p>“So your mommy carried you safe,” he said quietly. “For nine-”</p><p>“Six. About. Maybe seven.”</p><p>“-months. Six months,” he echoed, heart flipping. “But the dream you had - how long did you know-”</p><p>“Only - three.”</p><p>“God. Three months. Knowing he’d-”</p><p>“Carrying my sons,” she said fiercely. “I knew hor-horror for three months. But now I know. I know this. These two. You said it. Three against one.” Denial, denial. It was a form of her old coping mechanism, really, but the words they chose to describe this story were important, and they would be important to these boys too.</p><p>He wished, suddenly, for anything at all of his own story. Anything to tell them some day in the future, my mother was...</p><p>“Yes, for six months then, Mom-mommy carried you. Safe. So you could grow. And then you came, and she got to hold you-”</p><p>“Right up against my neck,” she murmured. He’d heard this part of the story before, and it never failed to make his heart flip. She had bent down over James and Wyatt and now kissed their up-turned faces. “You both curled right up. How surprised I was to find two little boys instead of one. Wyatt, my surprised by joy. And James, my steady little man.”</p><p>Oh, God, he was going to cry.</p><p>Fuck, he was not going to cry. Not now.</p><p>“Hello, babies,” she said softly. “How I love you. How you carried me, then, how you carried me.”</p><p>No. Too late. He was crying.</p><p>Castle scuffed at his eyes and cleared his throat, breaking it up, furious and appalled and yet - not ashamed. He wasn’t ashamed.</p><p>Kate was remarkable, and it was okay to be amazed by her.</p><p>-----</p><p>Their little upturned faces had broken her heart, absolutely, completely, forever. She had not wanted the one she had thought she would have, and somehow Wyatt's existence flipped some switch, the boy unburdened by her roiling hatred.</p><p>James, poor baby, had been the one she'd directed her vitriol towards, and he'd been the dark little shadow to his light, happy brother. </p><p>But seeing their faces now, in the limn of afternoon sun pouring through broad windows, their little upturned, concerned, eager faces, her heart was stitched together. All three of them piled up practically on top of their daddy, wriggling and strong and normal, and Kate was merely so grateful to be alive to see it.</p><p>"My little shadow," she murmured against James's cheek. He mewled and bumped his head into her, but now he could reach out for her, now he could clutch her neck and cling to her and no one told him no.</p><p>Well except Castle, and the no was only provisional, and only to untangle her hair from the boy's fists or get a foot out of her ribs. She kissed James's face, that no-longer-cautious, happy face, and she was gratified to see that his grin break the seam of his mouth and he giggled to have her so near.</p><p>"Mommy, me!" Wyatt burst out. She lifted her head as Castle chuckled, loosened her hold on James to reach out for his envious brother. </p><p>"I see you too, baby. Come here. Castle, get-"</p><p>"I got him." He was trading places for the boys, cradling James now against his chest so that Kate could give her demanding son some attention. Team work, and how easy it was to share the duties, how good to have a partner.</p><p>"Were you jealous, my little nut?" She kissed his mouth just to make him squirm with pride, and then his forehead, brushing his hair back out of his eyes. "You know, I used to look at Wyatt and think - there's his daddy. Not Black. Couldn't be Black. Not with these beautiful eyes, and this nut brown hair."</p><p>"His hair was dark," Castle murmured. "His eyes?"</p><p>"Brown eyes. You must've gotten your coloring from your mom."</p><p>He sucked in a breath that she felt, a reaction she hadn't expected, and she lifted her head from her cuddling of Wyatt. </p><p>"Castle?"</p><p>"I don't - know my mom. But. I never thought to wonder. If my coloring was hers."</p><p>"Blue eyes," she murmured, reaching out to caress the side of his face. Her thumb brushed under his eye and thought, strangely, that his skin felt damp. "James's eyes are yours as well. And I would imagine you sometimes. What you looked like. Wyatt's complexion, that hint of pink to his skin where mine and James's is yellow. And Wyatt's hair." She grinned and combed her fingers through Castle's bangs, just as she'd done to Wyatt. "Yup. Fine as silk, soft. Almost blonde from the sun. Wyatt's has little streaks in it now just from our day out. Aren't you so pretty?"</p><p>Wyatt was squirming in her arms, absolutely adoring the attention, and it made her wonder ifCastle was like that too. If his personality was similar, just as James seemed to echo her. Something to file away, bring out later tonight when she could pour her attention out on him. Interesting.</p><p>"So the blue eyes are your mother's," she told him, drawing her hand down his face and resting it against his chest. "And the lighter hair. Though you're still brown, not blonde, so hers could have been anything."</p><p>"Blonde?" he murmured.</p><p>"Well, even chestnut or dirty blonde or, hell, she could have colored it, so you'd never have known."</p><p>"Oh. Do you color yours? I mean, would you?"</p><p>She flushed, a mingling of awareness and shame. "I didn't use to. In high school, Maddie and I put purple and blue streaks in our hair. But I mean - I could. Highlights." </p><p>"I like your hair," he murmured, touching the ends with his fingers and playing with her hair. "Not to say you can't change it, but the color is rich. Naturally. I don't think many women are so blessed."</p><p>Her lips quirked. "Sometimes I forget you're a world class spy. Dress and hair and make-up. That's important to your world, isn't it?"</p><p>"Yup." He wriggled his eyebrows. "Did your mom highlight hers?"</p><p>"Oh, she colored it. For sure. It was going gray when I was in high school. Dad said she worked too hard. Stress. She had a grey streak right here." Kate touched the back of her neck. "I thought it was cool, but she hated it."</p><p>"What color?"</p><p>"Mine," she said simply, shrugging at him. "Dark hair, though she sometimes got low lights put in. Chestnut colored by that time. Same texture too."</p><p>"And her eyes?"</p><p>"Yeah," she nodded. She had studied her mother's face in photos a hundred times as a kid, the shape and lines that were the same, the ones that were different. "I used to check obsessively. One of my older cousins told me I was adopted, and even though I didn't believe it, I still worried."</p><p>"What else is the same?"</p><p>"Chin," she huffed, lips twitching. "Jaw. My dad's nose. Mom's mouth. And the rest is kinda - well, my own. Or a mixture. We're all mutts, Castle."</p><p>"I wonder if my mouth is my mother's," he said, and she heard a wistful note in his voice. "Because it's not his at all."</p><p>She touched his bottom lip with her thumb. "Not at all." Though the crinkle in his eyes was. "But your eyes are kind, and it shows up here, all the times you smile." She skimmed her fingers along those crow's feet that had, in Black, only seemed narrow and sinister. Castle's eyes narrowed the same, but she only saw it in his laughter, his extreme joy, and it changed and shaped his whole face.</p><p>"I never had a reason to smile before," he murmured.</p><p>She scoffed in his face, shaking her head. "Not true. Otherwise these lines wouldn't be so deep, sweetheart. You're like Wyatt. You manage to make the world joyful. You see the fun in things. You can always play."</p><p>He was staring at her, studying her like a ravenous man, swallowing her regard whole. </p><p>-----</p><p>It was a slow exchange of stories as the boys wriggled in the couch and watched Sesame Street. He prompted each one with a memory of his time in training or a comment about the boys' personalities, and she gave over a treasure trove of information. The ugly hair cut her mother gave her when she was seven that ended up in her school picture, the neighborhood kids from her apartment building who had a fort on their roof, her father's patient answers to her thousands of questions, the cheap brass medallion she wore around her neck when she was ten because she thought it was gold.</p><p>It didn't exactly pour out of her, it was still like pulling teeth, but every new memory she dredged up shifted the angle of her grief that much more. He watched her whole countenance lighten, her shoulders straighten, her mood relax, and after Sesame Street was over and Elmo's World was gone, it was time for the boys' to eat dinner anyway.</p><p>She was the one who stopped and gathered the boys by the hand, leading them towards the kitchen table with promises of bananas and blueberries. But just when he thought show and tell was over, she was finishing her story.</p><p>"When my neck turned green, I was horrified," she chuckled, sitting Wyatt in his chair. "Wy, baby, you have to sit."</p><p>Castle hopped up quickly, throwing off his sullenness as the return of her story. He moved for the fridge like he'd intended to all along, trying to make the transition as smooth as possible so she wouldn't notice just how much she was revealing.</p><p>"My mom caught me in the bathroom trying to surreptitiously scrub my neck, and she laughed at me and said, that's what you get for wearing that cheap stuff."</p><p>"She knew you'd been wearing it?" he smiled.</p><p>"Yeah, course she did. Never got anything by her." She huffed and tugged Wyatt's ear. "I said sit down."</p><p>Castle brought the bowl of blueberries to the table, hoping to distract the boys. "What did she do about it?"</p><p>"It was bad enough to be laughed at," she snorted. "She didn't need to do anything more."</p><p>"I guess not. You definitely do have a stubborn little soul, don't you?"</p><p>"Much like your son," she muttered, jerking Wyatt's legs out from under him to make him sit. "Baby, you don't get to eat unless you sit. Otherwise it will be all over the place, and I'm not cleaning that up. Never had to before, did I? What makes you think I will now."</p><p>Castle froze, but she was tugging the bowl towards her and pouring out a handful of blueberries for Wyatt. Castle recovered fast, moving back for the kitchen and the sausage Colin had made for breakfast this morning. He grabbed plastic plates and cut up the links into bite sizes, came back even while Kate finished her story.</p><p>"So my mom's precious necklace was just some piece of junk she'd gotten from mass - not even a mass. I think she said she'd bought it to light a candle."</p><p>"I've done that before. There's a cathedral in Paris, it's quiet and empty usually, because a tourist attraction one is just up the street. Anyway, to light a candle, you make a donation in the votive box and if you pay enough, you can get these trinkets and icons sometimes."</p><p>Her face glowed as she looked up at him from over Wyatt's head. "Yeah. That's what it was. An icon. A woman on the front with a sword. She was awesome."</p><p>"Badass. Joan of Arc, probably."</p><p>"You know about saints and stuff?" She was giving James a pile of his own, blueberries rolling across the table.</p><p>"For - work," he said, shrugging. "Posed as a priest in Ireland for a while."</p><p>"A priest. Huh. It might be sacrilege to say, but I bet you made a damn hot priest."</p><p>He chuckled, shooting her a look as he placed the plates in front of the boys. "Putting that 'damn' in there probably did, yeah."</p><p>She grinned back, a hot little tease in her eyes, in the demure cast of her face. "Well, then. I'm going to hell."</p><p>"Not if I can help it."</p><p>She laughed then, apparently surprised by him, though she cast her hand through Wyatt's hair to pull it off his face. "Well, anyway, her Joan of Arc medallion that I had been so proud about stealing - not that important to her. But she took me to Macy's department store and she got me this gorgeous gold chain. It didn't have a medallion, but she said we could go back later and get a pendant. Anything I wanted."</p><p>"What did you end up getting?"</p><p>Kate's shoulders came up, her head came down. "Never - never did. Supposed to after - like a graduation gift - but my parents got me a computer instead. A bright blue iMac. And so my mom said, next summer. She was going to take me to Tiffany's after my freshman year."</p><p>But she never made it. Her mother had been murdered right in front of her instead. "Did - you were wearing the chain that night," he said, not a question really. Of course she had been. Of course.</p><p>She nodded, moved past him for the kitchen, and he knew the words had stopped. Story time was over.</p><p>He studied the floor until he could get a handle on his facial expression, and when he finally turned around, she was pouring water into sports bottles for the boys. Mechanical, smooth, nothing breaking through that cool exterior.</p><p>He wondered if he could - could he buy her a simple gold chain? Or would it only ruin things?</p><p>If he knew his father, Black had kept that chain. He would have wanted it in reserve to use against her. He would've had it in storage, close at hand, minutely catalogued and in detail. In fact, if Castle went back through those medical records, if they even went back that far, Black probably had made a note of exactly what he'd done with it.</p><p>Castle was going to get it back or die trying. He was going to get her mother's gold chain for her, even if it never would hold a pendant.</p><p>-----</p><p>"I'm not sure if they're hungry," she said doubtfully. "Before we leave maybe?"</p><p>Castle checked his watch, nodding. "Yeah, good idea. Since we usually - or well, you usually - nurse them before bed. Colin will have to put them to bed tonight, but-"</p><p>"I thought - um - actually, I wanted to do that," she spoke up, fidgeting behind Wyatt's chair. She'd been cleaning his fingers of the blueberry juice that stained everything, but he was still squirming to get away. </p><p>"You want to put them to bed? Of course. Yes. We'll come back from dinner a little early then."</p><p>She wondered if she'd survive that. If it wouldn't throw off her game if she lost her momentum putting the boys to bed. "Um, actually. I could just nurse them before we go and put them to bed? I don't want to interrupt tonight. Would it hurt - it wouldn't hurt them, a little earlier. They've stayed up late, but surely babies are supposed to go to bed at eight or something?"</p><p>Castle was staring at her. She flushed and dropped Wyatt's hand from hers, letting him escape off the chair. When she glanced back to Castle though, a ridiculous grin had split across her face.</p><p>"What are you smiling about?" she muttered.</p><p>He tried to wipe it off, she saw him making the effort, but that silly grin came back anyway. "No, nothing. Nothing. We can have a late dinner. How's that? Put the boys to bed here, and then leave after."</p><p>"It won't - um - ruin plans or anything? Did you have to make reservations?"</p><p>Something flashed across his face. "No. I-" His voice cracked and he swallowed hard, gripping the back of the chair before him. "Did you want something that fancy?" </p><p>Her mouth dropped open.</p><p>"Shit," he whispered. "You did. I didn't think. I thought - fuck. I'll-"</p><p>"No," she cried out, starting forward and catching him by the shoulders. "No, don't do anything. Not for me. It's not important-"</p><p>"Of course you're important," he growled. His eyes were shiny. Oh, God.</p><p>"Castle, baby, no," she murmured, pressing in close to him. She wound an arm around his neck and lifted up on her toes to get all of him against her. "No, honey, I meant dinner. Dinner isn't that important. I just wanted to wear my dress, and I can do that any place we go. Even if it's McDonalds."</p><p>"Oh, fuck me, I'm not taking you to McDonalds. I'll find something better than-"</p><p>"No, we're going where you had in mind to begin with. Hush." She kissed his jaw, rubbing her nose against the scruff. "I want to go to the place you picked out for me."</p><p>He shivered and drew his arms around her, tighter now, and she nestled her head against his shoulder. Broad and tall and wide. He was so taut with tension, with muscle, and it made her body respond.</p><p>"Where the hell is Colin?" she husked. "Let's get this show on the road."</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle looked rather uncomfortable as he stood before the bed. She could actually see how thick his erection already was, and she hadn’t even been touching him. Was it the water soaking through her t-shirt from bath?</p><p>“You don’t have to if you - can’t take it,” she said, cradling James close to her chest as she began to strip. “I can hold them now, and actually, it might be more helpful now if you take Wyatt somewhere until I can get to him. He’s seriously distracting.”</p><p>Castle looked rather forlorn at the prospect, but he bent down and scooped up Wyatt from the bed.</p><p>She laughed softly at his pout, both boys’ down-turned lips, mirror images of each other. “Don’t look so glum, Castle. You can nurse after dinner too.”</p><p>His eyes turned feral just that fast, and the blush that had burned up her neck with those careless words changed rapidly to the simple, pure heat of lust.</p><p>“I’d like that,” he growled.</p><p>“Me too.”</p><p>He nodded briskly and spun away, carrying off Wyatt to parts unknown - hopefully the living room, and some calming television. “No Spongebob!” she called after him.</p><p>“Anything you say,” he called back.</p><p>She grinned down into James’s face, peeling away the cup of her bra so that he could nurse. His lips latched on and then his teeth, but before she could do so much as wince, he’d backed off, using his tongue and gums instead.</p><p>Castle had found that rhythm fairly quickly as well, and she had the odd, ridiculous thought that it was a family trait. Like that was something they’d unknowingly been bred for. Good at milking, check.</p><p>Oh, God, tonight was going to be intense. Finally no restrictions, no limitations, and she was insanely curious about all the things he’d done before. Places, positions, kinks. What kinds of ways, how flexible could they be, and would it hurt...</p><p>He’d do everything in his considerable power and knowledge to keep her from hurting. She knew that, trusted in it already. But in a weird way, she kind of wanted to be hurt. She wanted it to leave a mark, wanted to feel him in ways she’d never wanted to be touched before.</p><p>In ways that couldn’t be reached.</p><p>James grumbled in his chest, almost a purr, and Kate stroked the side of his face, watching him as he studied her right back.</p><p>“Wasn’t thinking about you, was I?” she whispered. “Jealous, baby? You share me with Wyatt. Though I guess you don’t always love that either.” His eyes blinked slowly, fingers touching her breast, little hand resting there. “You gotta learn to speak up when you want me. About anything you want, honey.”</p><p>His tongue pushed at her, and she caught her breath, remembering how he used to do that when he was a tiny thing, like he wanted to talk back and was struggling to figure out how. She’d shut down on the noises they made, had done that first thing, hushing them, quieting them, keeping them still just to keep them longer.</p><p>If it looked like they had started to interact with her, they were taken away. But obviously that had changed when she’d been given them back, when they had fought to have her. Although they weren’t taken from her arms again, not quite like that, he would find other ways to punish her through them, and so the boys had learned to hunker down and wait it out, to be quiet. Seen but not heard.</p><p>“But no more,” she murmured over him, craning her neck to kiss the top of his head. “No more hiding, no more secret loves. If you want me, sweetheart, you call for me. Mommy or Daddy will come get you.”</p><p>He stared up at her like she was everything. Wyatt - that boy had begun to look to Castle for things, but not this one. Not like his brother. His little face always turned to seek her out.</p><p>Suddenly Castle came jogging back through, sticking his head in the doorway. “Colin’s back. Just drove up. Want this one?”</p><p>“In a hurry?” she laughed.</p><p>“Yes. Definitely. James, you better be done, kiddo.”</p><p>“Leave him here for now. He’s sleepy enough to stay quiet with me. Come on, baby boy, lie down right here.”</p><p>And even though she was kind of rushing him, James had been only taking intermittent pulls of milk, already full from dinner.</p><p>“Here,” Castle said, lowering Wyatt to her arms. He brushed his hand over James’s back. “Good boy. Hey, I’m gonna find out what Colin’s been up to, report back to you.”</p><p>“I’ll be here,” she smiled up at him. Even as she guided Wyatt to her breast, her whole body tingled with the idea of tonight. Dinner and tonight. </p><p>His kiss was rough and then he left the room, obviously just as excited as she was.</p><p>-----</p><p>Colin was being strange, withholding maybe, or just suspicious of Kate’s stability, but Castle ignored him. His brother was willing to stay at the house while they went out, keep an ear out for the babies, and that was all that really mattered.</p><p>Castle had ducked in and kissed both boys good-night, leaving the humming and stories up to Kate while he’d gone back downstairs. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself, he was so keyed up and aroused just thinking about tonight - about dinner - not even the sex - and he needed to get some energy out.</p><p>He’d promised not to take care of himself, but he probably ought to take a cold shower just to survive until tonight. Spruce himself up a bit. Something to do, rather than twiddling his thumbs and not thinking about how much he couldn’t wait to take her out.</p><p>He jumped in the shower, brittle cold spray, and scrubbed hard at his face and body with the soap. They’d showered after the lake, but now he wanted to do some grooming, think about his presentation. It mattered what she saw, and the impression he might make tonight.</p><p>She’d seen it all already, of course, but washed everything thoroughly before hopping out again, the cold doing its best to calm him down.</p><p>He wasn’t calm. But it was a little better.</p><p>When he came out of the bathroom, Kate was standing in the closet in nothing at all, and his heart started pounding against his ribs. He grunted a curse and she turned halfway, glancing at him over her shoulder.</p><p>Her little squeak only made him laugh, and then he laughed harder when she slammed the closet door in his face. </p><p>“Go away, Castle!”</p><p>“Kate, honey, I’ve seen it.”</p><p>“But I want it to be a surprise.”</p><p>A surprise. Her underwear. Holy God, she was going to kill him.</p><p>“I’m going,” he croaked, shuffling back into the bathroom. Cold shower had been made worthless to him now, but he ran cool water in the sink and splashed his face a couple times, fighting for his control.</p><p>She wanted it to be a surprise when he finally peeled that dress off of her. She-</p><p>Yeah, he had to stop.</p><p>Castle concentrated instead on his face, inspecting his jawline and the skin under his eyes, tilting his head, turning it side to side. He used the exfoliating wash first, scrubbing until his skin felt fresh, and then he gathered what he needed to shave.</p><p>Straight razor, the old-fashioned kind with the handle that hid the blade. He’d picked it up in Cologne once, found himself oddly attracted to the age, the sense of tradition and history.</p><p>He was going to teach his own sons how to shave.</p><p>Fucking hell. He had two boys to teach how to shave, to pass on the razor and its traditions. Two boys who would want to sit on the counter while he shaved, watch him like they watched their mother.</p><p>Kate breezed into the bathroom, body wrapped in that black dress, her waist so narrow he wanted to clamp his hands on her hips and pick her up. She gave him a sideways glance in at the mirror, watching him shave carefully along his chin, and then she picked out her make-up from the plastic bag and leaned forward.</p><p>He watched her and she watched him, each performing their own grooming, and the air building with the intensity of their anticipation.</p><p>After a few minutes, the scent of her face cream and powder, the soft blush and the lipstick all combined with the tantalizing cherry blossom of her lotion until she was a wonderful cloud of perfume. He took a deep breath and dipped his head to the sink, rinsed the shaving cream from his cheeks and chin and neck.</p><p>It smelled like Kate in here. Surrounding him.</p><p>He lifted his head and patted his face dry with the wash cloth, only to startle when her hand dropped to his back. He glanced quickly up to the mirror and saw her watching him, her fingers scratching lightly up and down his spine, studying the way he got ready.</p><p>He straightened up and her hand dropped down to his towel, flirted with the edge. </p><p>“Are you ready?” he murmured.</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>“I’ll hurry,” he husked, turning swiftly to kiss her temple, trying not to smudge her make-up or lip gloss or whatever it was. </p><p>But she turned her head and he realized how tall she was in these wedge sandals, how her lips brushed right against his nose. “Please do.”</p><p>Hell, yeah, he was hurrying.</p><p>-----</p><p>She held his hand in hers as they walked down the bridge in the late afternoon light. The echo of the wooden boards against the wedge of her sandals mirrored his own footfalls, and she found herself ridiculously proud that she could match his stride.</p><p>The moon was out, a pale impression in the hazy blue sky, but the sun was close to setting and smearing the horizon with violent pink. Castle's fingers were wide, separating her own in an almost painful way, the ache of her blood pumping through her hand. She squeezed harder, and he glanced over at her once, as if in question, but she had no question, she had nothing she needed to say.</p><p>It was warm, and she didn't even need a sweater on her bare shoulders, the long v of the neckline exposing skin newly gilded by a day in the sun. </p><p>At the end of the bridge, their feet crunched on gravel and Castle untangled their fingers to deposit her at the passenger side, opening the door for her. She slipped past him to climb into the jeep, flushing at his close proximity and the hand he had on her elbow, helping.</p><p>When she was settled, and she had pulled the flare of her dress in against her thighs, Castle touched her knee, just below the hem. "You look beautiful," he said quietly. "Not sure I actually said that."</p><p>He hadn't. But. "Thank you." She laid her fingers over his hand and squeezed, and he finally moved on, closing the door on her. She leaned across to flick the lock on his door, but it was already done; she'd forgotten that remote on his key fob.</p><p>Things had changed. New York had changed - the skyline had changed - and she was still catching up.</p><p>Castle jumped in and slid behind the wheel, easily, his hands capable and confident where hers had hesitated. Gears, control, steering wheel, mirrors, seat - he made the jeep an extension of his own body and she loved feeling the engine vibrating in her seat, his engine, the power he navigated so well.</p><p>Soon. The word was a thrumming engine inside her as well. </p><p>The gravel and dirt drive up to the country road led them up to the main highway, though still two lanes and barely dotted with traffic. He laid his hand on the center console and she dropped hers on top of his, the vulnerable skin of her inside wrist touching the fine hairs of his forearm. He said not a word, and she was glad for that, this respite from talking, probing her for details like he always did.</p><p>Maybe it was the spy in him, always seeking to debrief, but she was relieved to note he could, actually, shut up for once.</p><p>She smirked and he caught her looking, a roll of his eyes and a twitch of his fingers under hers. She hooked her pinky around his pointer finger, he curled his in response, setting off a lovely flex of the muscles of his forearm, that leashed and lashed strength under her.</p><p>Soon.</p><p>Though the drive was quiet, it wasn't silent. Things were being said. His body in reaction to hers, her breathing speeding up and slowing once more in response. The brush of her hair against the headrest, the tangling of fingers, the tires on the road as they went around a curve and he commanded the entirety so well.</p><p>When the highway broadened out and buildings began to appear, Kate leaned in on the console and watched the town populate. All of the sudden, there were battered trucks and storage buildings, and then farther in, hardware and feed stores. When the highway's speed limit dropped dramatically, though Castle didn't, not that much anyway, there was an abundance of quaint shops and original architecture, a white-steepled church and a city hall, and finally, restaurants. </p><p>Converted spaces, most of them, but Castle turned into an overflow lot with no identifiers, parked in a slot between a minivan and a new, shiny Volkswagen beetle. She opened the passenger door only to be met by a scowling Castle, who helped her down nevertheless and closed her door for her - and then she was clued in to the fact that he'd been intending on being a gentleman.</p><p>She wasn't sorry exactly, not for opening her own door, but she resolved to do better. Be an easier date. Though his scowl was so cute, and only half-hearted really, and she threaded her arm through his crooked elbow, realizing again that he'd meant for that as well.</p><p>Since she was tall enough in her recently purchased shoes to lean in and kiss his cheek, she did. Lingering. His jaw was smooth, the scent of spiced mint when she breathed him in.</p><p>He walked them down the sidewalk that fronted Main Street, her legs relearning their strength in heels, in bare skin to the sun, even as Castle seemed to slow down. As if he didn't want their walk to end. The buildings here were converted old homes, Georgian and Federal's brick mixing with the Gothic and Greek revival's columns. Most of these were restaurants and boutique stores, a downtown restoration. Swanky, chic, upscale, most of them, although the occasional squatty hair salon or shingled tax man hung on to their little strip of land.</p><p>Castle's fingers squeezed around hers where they curled at his bent elbow. She glanced over at him and he gestured with his chin towards a white columned front door, the Colonial revival house spanning the whole front walk and rising with stately elegance for three stories.</p><p>The sign on the white picket fence said Ashley's with no other information offered, but a couple had already gone on inside ahead of them, both slightly more casual in polo shirt and the woman in black pants, but enough style to them that Kate didn't feel overdressed. </p><p>Castle held the door for her, not mentioning her slight stumble on the uneven brick walk, and she stepped inside the restaurant's dim foyer. And hesitated.</p><p>Castle came in at her back, a hand to her waist to usher her forward, and she moved instinctively to his nudge, finding herself in a little cluster of waiting groups. Her heart jump-started with that old panic, and she reached back for his hand, gripping tightly, still off-balanced from the bricks outside. </p><p>He pressed their joined hands into her back, her knuckles bumping the rise of her ass as he pushed her forward, and it seemed easier somehow to let him steer. Even though she was ahead of him, he was guiding, his insistence and control and mastery were dominating the room, assuring her place in it.</p><p>He led them to the hostess's stand, and when he was finally at her side rather than her back, she dragged their joined hands before her, pressed him into her stomach so she could catch her breath.</p><p>That he didn't ask are you ok made her okay, and if her shoulder brushed his it was just fine, because it was a date, their date, and that's what people did anyway.</p><p>The hostess returned with a stack of menus and gave them a harried half-smile. "Names?"</p><p>"How long is the wait?" Castle asked instead.</p><p>The girl checked her list and then glanced behind her to the mostly obscured dining area, as if she could see through walls and strategically placed greenery. "About ten minutes. We've had a good number of tables just clear. You've timed it perfectly."</p><p>"Thank you. I certainly try." Castle flashed her a beautiful - if fake - smile. No, not fake. But she had begun to see that the man had a public face, many public faces, and one very private one. </p><p>Kate got the private face, and the rest of the world was served up a version of this charming smile. And it worked, because as Castle gave their name - Rogers - Kate saw the hostess put a star by it, as if to give them special priority. All for a smile, and the smooth honey of his voice.</p><p>And yes, fine, was going to put a star by his name tonight, too, and all for that honeyed, husky sound in his throat when she touched him. But this was different. This was Castle's complete remote lack of interest masked by a thin veneer of civilized flirting.</p><p>Pushing buttons to get what he wanted, priority clearance, special treatment, access. And she knew something about that, though her efforts often yielded more painful results. Castle played with velvet, Kate had played with the blade.</p><p>"You want to sit or stand while we wait?" he murmured as the hostess left them. His finger stroked along her cheek and tucked a stand of errant hair behind her ear. "Your shoes are impressive. Do they hurt?"</p><p>"They don't hurt," she lied. Not entirely lying, if they only ached a little. "I'll get used to it again. Sit, I guess, though not where people are standing too close over me."</p><p>"I'll find you a place," he said softly, a kiss to her cheek. "Leave that to me." And then he turned and, still holding her hand, began to thread his way back through the waiting people, guiding her unerringly towards a miraculously free wooden pew. </p><p>His own bulk and air of superiority pushed people away from them, as if Castle was untouchable and everyone agreed to it. Kate sank to the bench gratefully, and tugged on his suit jacket to prompt him down with her.</p><p>He sat at her side, the high arm of the pew pressing her into his shoulder, and his hand came to rest over her knee. Innocent, no, but respectful, yes. His fingers rubbed along the top of her knee in an abstracted kind of way, causing liquid heat to pool in her belly and climb up her throat.</p><p>She couldn't help herself. She slid her hand achingly high, teasing the inside of his thigh, before dragging back down to rest over his fingers. He stopped stroking her, stopped everything - even his breathing, and sat very still beside her.</p><p>"Is it going to be like that?" he murmured finally.</p><p>Her blood bloomed hot beneath her skin. "Yes," she whispered back. "I think it is."</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle followed the hostess back through the long narrow hall to where the interior of the house had been gutted, the entire space used for dining. Kate was at his side, only a step behind, her hand still firmly and warmly in his. Her fingers were preternaturally cool, and he goofily thought it was good sign: his elixir-strong circulatory system usually kept him overly warm, and now that seemed a positive rather than a discomfort.</p><p>The hostess left them at a table near the side windows, the very corner of the room, and before Castle could do anything, Kate was slipping around him to put her back to the walls.</p><p>His usual spot, so he had line of sight, but he said nothing and merely pulled out the chair for her, waited until she had sat down to scoot her in. She huffed a little breath and glanced at him over her shoulder, but Castle had moved to grab the second chair, and he dragged it over to place it right beside her.</p><p>"Castle," she chided, laughing a little in that kind of breathless way that he both loved and hated. Loved when she was writhing under his hands, hated when she was oh-so-slightly on edge.</p><p>"I'm not sitting across from you all night," he said. Ignoring the fact that he was also not sitting with his back to the room. Later. Time to explain the life of a spy later.</p><p>She subsided, allowed his hand on her knee again, though she twined her leg beneath his where his splayed thighs knocked him into her. Her shin at his calf was erotic, and he couldn't even explain why.</p><p>"These prices are crazy," she hissed suddenly.</p><p>Castle glanced beside him to see her scanning the menu, eyebrows lifted on her forehead. He tapped the menu and nudged his shoulder into hers. "Hush, baby. Crazy prices means good food. And I'm not the kind of man who takes his date to McDonalds."</p><p>"Although their fries are my favorites. And milkshakes. Oh, Castle, they have thick, wonderful-"</p><p>"Do not talk to me about McDonalds when I'm taking you someplace nice."</p><p>She laughed again - he would never get tired of that sound - and bumped his shoulder back. But she went back to surveying the menu, her lips moving as she sounded out the French. He could just hear the words under her breath, and he realized she could actually speak it. To some degree anyway. </p><p>"High school French?" he said softly.</p><p>She glanced over at him with a buzzing little frown. "Yes. And a trip to Paris one summer. Why are you not looking at your menu?"</p><p>"I already know what I want, and it's not on the menu."</p><p>Her face flushed bright red and then she laughed, a hand clasping over her mouth as the sound carried.</p><p>Castle winced. "Sorry. It kinda came out. I do actually know what I want - I looked at the menu on the computer earlier. I like to be prepared."</p><p>"Then what looks good?" she said, closing her own menu.</p><p>He gently reached over and opened it again. He didn't mind telling her, but it seemed important that tonight she make her own choices. "This," he murmured, not accidentally brushing his bent elbow against her breast. "Veal parmesan. I hear it's their specialty. We shall see."</p><p>Kate was breathing a little deeper; he though that too wasn't an accident. She nodded and hummed something acknowledging, and yet it worked. She perused the menu again, her eyes skimming over the entrees.</p><p>"I think I'll have the salmon - oh, no, wait. I don't want fish breath when you kiss me. Gross."</p><p>Castle chuckled, smoothing his thumb over the sensitive, vulnerable place where her skin fleshed her tricep, just above her elbow. "Sweetheart, dessert is on the menu as well. And in between, a palette cleanser."</p><p>"Ah."</p><p>"Sorbet, which is minty and fruity and will definitely get rid of any gross salmon. Though - and stop me if you've heard this before - you taste not entirely unlike salmon."</p><p>"I taste-" Her mouth dropped open, so beautifully flushed her cheeks, her neck. Castle leaned in and touched her chin, lifted until her mouth closed.</p><p>He kissed her very lightly, delighted to have the upper hand. "You taste smoky and light, hint of salt and lemon, with an under current of flavor unlike anything else. So while I appreciate the sentiment, and the care, don't not order salmon on my account."</p><p>"Rick Castle," she husked, her fingers dragging up his neck to curl around his ear. "You are dripping with sex. Or I am, really. I think it's just me."</p><p>And suddenly he was entirely not in control.</p><p>-----</p><p>She was relieved to find the salmon was indeed light, only a little lemon zest and butter, no peppers or herbs she might not be able to stomach. She didn't think puking in the toilet all night and then having a whiteout on top of that would be exactly sexy and she had spent the last few days eating pancakes and mashed potatoes. </p><p>While thoroughly excellent, pancakes and mashed potatoes hadn't prepared her for five course meal selections, and her rice and fish and steamed veggies were almost bland they were so friendly. Not tasteless, no, because this was a four star restaurant, but she didn't have to worry about it all night if she kept her portions small.</p><p>Castle had the veal, and she stole bites from his plate since he was so sitting right there. He gruffed something about ordering her own if she was wanted veal, but she continued to sample and he continued to stroke his fingers at her knee while he ate his own meal, not saying another word about it.</p><p>She had skipped the soup, a clam chowder too thick with cream and redolent of seafood, a smell so pervasive, she'd been forced to ask the waiter to take it away. Castle had dumped his off as well, and though the waiter seemed crestfallen, Kate had tried to smooth things over, not wanting to insult the chef. It's very good, but I just had a baby and smells still get to me. Castle had squeezed her knee in a kind of appreciation she had thought, and the salads had been handed over instead.</p><p>Which she hadn't eaten either, but at least it hadn't made her stomach churn. The salmon was really very delicate and light, and she had no trouble eating half of it and using the vegetables to soak up the glaze, eating most of them without thought. The veal on Castle's plate was just the right touch of heavy, dark flavors - smoke and wine - and she found herself licking her thumb for the last traces of taste.</p><p>"Mm, you know," she murmured, "I think this is your taste. If we're comparing to foods."</p><p>"That's my what?"</p><p>"Cock."</p><p>He sputtered on his wine, choking and rocking forward, his fingers in a vise on her knee so that her bones crunched. She grinned and smothered it fast, licking her thumb slowly around nonexistent sauce, studying Castle's struggle to breathe.</p><p>"Hell, woman," he croaked.</p><p>"It's dark and smoky, salty. Isn't veal a baby calf?"</p><p>"Yes," he grunted.</p><p>"A tender almost-bull. That would be you, right?"</p><p>"Tender," he growled.</p><p>"To me," she murmured back, smiling now and leaning in against his arm. Her breasts divided by the thick cord of his bicep. He flexed - oh, he knew what she was doing - and she sucked in a breath to feel it all the more sharply. "Tender to me. My little baby calf."</p><p>"Hardly."</p><p>"Oh, you're hard, alright, love. Felt that when I skimmed your crotch with my knuckles."</p><p>"I'm not sure you're allowed to say words like that in here."</p><p>She chuckled lightly in his ear and leaned in to kiss it, that soft fuzz of his earlobe that tickled her somewhere deep, inside, in places no one had touched. No one. Until him.</p><p>"You'll have to go on ahead of me, when we leave, just so you know."</p><p>"Is that a threat?"</p><p>"No, baby, it's a consequence of your voice in my hear saying naughty delicious things. You keep talking about my cock and it will be the only thing anyone sees."</p><p>She pouted, pressing her mouth against his jaw and cheek so he could feel it. "But I'm the only who gets to see your cock."</p><p>He growled something fierce and rumbling in his chest, something darkly possessive, and she felt the thrill shiver through her bones and strike between her legs. Everything was throbbing again, and she was wet, and so swollen that she had to uncross her legs, absolutely couldn't keep that up.</p><p>"Eat the rest of your fish. The sorbet comes next."</p><p>"I'm finished," she murmured, tongue touching his ear. </p><p>"I need to eat, Kate," he whined. Head tossing like an animal as if to dislodge. "Please. I can't - you're making me crazy."</p><p>She paused a moment, trying to decipher the lines here. She had a tendency to roll right over lines, purposefully, celebrating, glorying in it, but it had made her too much. For him?</p><p>His head turned and suddenly he was devouring her mouth, right there at the table, salmon butter and everything, his tongue thrusting lewdly, his grip tight on her face. And then he jerked himself back, dark desperate eyes on her, and she knew.</p><p>He had no lines with her. Whatever lines he used to have, she'd crossed them so very long ago that they were dust.</p><p>Oh, Castle.</p><p>She had to be very careful with his heart.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Castle watched Kate press her lips to the dainty spoon and remove all traces of sorbet. Before she could comment or gather herself again, he leaned in and kissed her insistently, stroking his tongue inside for the taste of frozen lemon.</p><p>She shivered even as he kissed her, her cold fingers curling at his ear and stroking down his cheek, curving at his jaw. She moaned softly when he broke from her, and her eyes were slow to open.</p><p>Her lashes touched his. She was breathing hard.</p><p>“Mm, told you. Not a hint of salmon.”</p><p>“Enough,” she husked, eyes opening now. “Enough. Take me home.”</p><p>“Kate, there’s chocolate-”</p><p>“No,” she said, her breath catching. Her fingers tugged hard on his tie. “You’re taking me home. I want you. No more food. I can’t eat it anyway. Take me home.”</p><p>He stared at her for half a heartbeat, and that was all it took. He was already hard for her, had been since - since forever - and all he had wanted was to show her how special she was, to make sure she understood what this was. Not just convenient, but consummate.</p><p>“Let me find the waiter,” he said. The intensity of her gaze had him jumping to his feet, napkin clutching at his waist to hide the bulge of his groin. He didn’t entirely care, people had a tendency to not stare at someone’s crotch even if it was obvious, but he knew she would be amused.</p><p>And yes, when he glanced at her over his shoulder, halfway to the kitchens, she had pressed two fingers to her lips, watching him, smirking.</p><p>Castle accosted their waiter at the swinging door, asked for dessert to go, and he pulled out his credit card right there. The waiter was seriously affronted, appalled, all of those things, and Castle tried his best to smooth it out.</p><p>“My wife,” he said, gesturing back towards their table. “She’s worried about the baby. She wants to get back. Thinks something will happen.”</p><p>The waiter seemed to appreciate that, a sympathetic flurry of movement as he ran the credit card and made small talk. Castle kept glancing back to Kate, whom he could see at this angle, though it was only the sharp edge of her shoulder blades like wings and the back of her head, hair tumbling in soft waves.</p><p>She was gorgeous. And she’d had enough, and she wanted to go home with him.</p><p>The waiter handed over his doggy bag of dessert, chocolate fondue and fruit, and Castle signed his receipt, thanking the man for his understanding and tipping him profusely for his service. When Castle hustled back to their table, Kate was composed once more, her eyes far away.</p><p>She roused at his approach, no smile, only the smoldering heat in her eyes. </p><p>“We can go,” he promised. “All taken care of. You ready?”</p><p>“Mm, so ready,” she sighed, quirking her lips at him. Her shoulder blades worked as if tipping her wings at him, the age old welcome sign of pilots signaled in the air, and when he held out his hand to her, she took it gracefully and rose.</p><p>Her black dress with its flared skirt, the deep vee of the neckline, the straps that met at her nape and fastened so that the bare skin of her back was on display - such strength and reserve, well-built but elegant.</p><p>“You look lovely,” he sighed. She sent him a startled glance as she passed him, her fingers dragging along his torso until she caught his tie.</p><p>“You look very handsome,” she murmured back. “I don’t think I said that. But you do.” Her tug on his tie was entirely unnecessary - he’d follow her no matter what - but she released him after a moment to cup his face in her hand. “You’re a beautiful man, Rick.”</p><p>Her mouth touched his, her eyes open - and his too, because he saw her the whole way, how she impressed her sentiment upon him with her concentration. </p><p>When she pulled back, she patted his cheek and then went ahead of him, taking his hand and leading the way out of the restaurant, just as he’d promised she would have to do. When he bumped in close at her back, their joined hands were between them and she wriggled her fingers right against his groin.</p><p>“Hell, woman,” he choked in her ear, crowding her now just for the relief of pressure, ostensibly to get them through the people by the door. “I don’t have any pants to change into.”</p><p>She laughed throatily - honest to God, it was a noise in her throat that made him harder than ever for her - but she only glanced at him over her shoulder with absolute calm, and dragged him out the door.</p><p>-----</p><p>There was only a glance of Colin retreating in the doorway when they entered, both mussed from touching, touching, all drive long, all along the bridge to the front door. She felt numb and flushed and aware, and yet clumsy, all fumbling fingers and thighs rushing with blood. Castle said something about the boys being asleep, but she didn’t quite hear or maybe process, her head was filled with sex.</p><p>“Okay, okay,” she murmured.</p><p>He was chuckling, fingers tight through hers, their hands joined since the restaurant (but that couldn’t be possible; at some point he would have had to get out of the car). She nudged him forward through the kitchen but he made her stop, putting away the white bag in the fridge-</p><p>“Dessert,” he hummed. “Later, if you’re hungry.”</p><p>“You,” she said back. “Just you. Come on.”</p><p>He grinned, she didn’t care. She was hungry alright, but she was too buzzing to think about later, about desert or making their way out of bed when all she wanted was in it. </p><p>Castle went first through the living room, though she was quick and rushing past him down the hall and into his bedroom. She turned in expectation, flushed to her breasts and up her neck to her ears, burning with him, the anticipation of him, and her skirt flared so that he paused in the doorway.</p><p>He leaned against the wood frame, studying her, his hand still tangled in hers but loose. His eyes were liquid, lazy almost, but she knew it for aggression, predator aggression, like a lion. Willing to let her come to him.</p><p>So she did, stepping into his body and pressing against him, heat to heat, groaning at the contact. “Still hard,” she murmured, turning her lips to his cheekbone, dusting under his eye.</p><p>“For you, yeah, love.”</p><p>“Undress me, Castle.”</p><p>His hands jerked into movement before he even spoke, a little grunt of approval as his fingers tripped along her bare spine. Up to her nape, thumbing the closure of her dress. A little snap was all, and he popped it easily.</p><p>She sucked in a breath and the top fell forward, pooling at her waist.</p><p>“No bra,” he gruffed. His hands came automatically for her breasts and cupped their weight. She gasped and gripped his arms, knees going weak at the feel of him, warm, so warm, encompassing her breasts.</p><p>“No - back,” she tried to explain. “Backless dress, so I-”</p><p>“Hush, baby, I know.” She might have taken exception to that, the rather domineering way he dismissed her explanation, but his mouth stopped talking and closed over her nipple instead.</p><p>She moaned, clutching his arm, finding an ear to hang on. He suckled deeply and tongued her nipple, and she felt her milk letdown. Castle pressed teeth into her and she yelped, crashing into his body in her effort to get away, get closer, something.</p><p>“Already less than before,” he murmured, kissing between her breasts and nudging his nose in her cleavage. “The milk.”</p><p>Less. Less. Less?</p><p>“Must be drying up,” she croaked. Didn’t feel like drying up, felt like he was tugging on a string that was connected to her sex, tugging hard. “More, Castle-”</p><p>He growled as he took her other breast. She panted through the tight, terrible twist of pleasure, that direct connection from nipple to cunt, a string bowed too the breaking point. She was having trouble keeping her feet, having trouble clearing her head of the haze of lust, the hard beat of now pounding in her body.</p><p>“Castle,” she called, gripping the material of his dress shirt. So beautiful a man, dangerous in a suit. She really wanted skin. His shirt off. His skin under her mouth. “Castle, off.”</p><p>His hands pushed down at her hips, his mouth popping lewdly off her breast. She groaned at the rush of cool air over her wet nipples, the way they tightened to hard points as his hands gripped her ass beneath the skirt.</p><p>“Working on it,” he growled.</p><p>“No, you,” she insisted, pushing her own hands into the fray. She found the button of his pants before she found his belt, had to work faster as his own work at her ass made her dizzy. His fingers kneading her flesh, the little tease at her anus with the material of her panties in the way.</p><p>She groaned in frustration, forehead dipping to his cheekbone. His mouth glanced her ear; she tried to breathe more deeply, get oxygen to her brain.</p><p>She felt the rattle of his belt buckle against the back of her hand, finally found his zipper with no small amount of triumph. He cursed in her ear and unzipped the low back of her dress, began divesting her of material. </p><p>She palmed his cock.</p><p>“Fuck, fuck,” he snapped. “Kate. I can’t - slow ain’t happening. Fuck me, I wanted to seduce you, but I’m losing it.”</p><p>“I want you losing it inside me,” she growled back. “Don’t you dare.”</p><p>He whined and his eyes fell open, hazy lust staring back at her, a deep and dark need.</p><p>She crashed her mouth into his, kissing him with tongue and lips and sucking breath, devouring him. He gripped her body and molded her against him, but she still had her hand against his groin, found her way to touching him, stroking him, until his cock was massive.</p><p>Oh, hell, this whole thing was supposed to fit inside her.</p><p>She wanted him so badly, so badly, she would make it happen. “Clothes,” she husked. “I want these off. I want to see you, everything.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he said, rather mindlessly at her ear, his body hot around hers. His mouth sucked hard at her jaw until she yelped, and then his teeth flashed, scraped over her throat until he put a similar mark on her collarbone.</p><p>She held his head against her with one hand, working at his boxer briefs with the other, the tight material pressing her fingers against his thigh, his groin, his cock. He was thrusting slowly into her touch, into her hipbone, and she found herself riding his thigh, grinding, needing.</p><p>“Let me do that,” he said at the hollow of her throat. “You have to wait too. Let me bring you off.”</p><p>She mewled as he pushed her away from his thigh, but he was stripping her out of her dress now, tossing it over the chair. She watched it collapse, the pretty form limp, but it wouldn’t wrinkle that way either.</p><p>His mouth came back to hers and took a long, wet kiss. The sounds they made as they touched and took, the wet sounds, the little moans, the whimpering and growling and slick slide of tongues. He was already teasing the skin at her hips with his hands, sliding back to her ass to palm her cheeks and roughly bring her against him.</p><p>“Your clothes,” she complained. “Not mine. Yours. Fuck it, Castle. Let me do it myself.” She pushed off on his chest and stumbled back, her breasts bouncing at her chest, aching a little with the revival of milk from his greedy mouth. She had meant to attack his pants and shirt, but instead she cupped her breasts to relieve that ache, a rather unconscious move.</p><p>But she saw the effect immediately in the dilation of his eyes, the narrow zone of his focus. He ducked his head and had one of her nipples in his mouth again, driving her back towards the bed and then collapsing on top of her in it.</p><p>She moaned and writhed up against him, wanting all of her body rubbing against his. The cold crisp of his shirt met the heat of his skin and began warming her as well, and yet goose bumps flared up along her thighs as he nursed.</p><p>She caressed his ear, his head, gasping when he ripped away and began moving down her stomach. Her abs rippled as his mouth touched kisses to her belly button, and then her inside thighs were opened even as she scissored her legs, on the edge of desperate.</p><p>He peeled the panties off her hips and down her legs, skimming hands and heated palms, laid down in the cradle she made for him. His breath was shocking against her sex, and she mewled, arching because nothing seemed to relieve the throbbing ache.</p><p>His mouth latched on and she shouted, jerking upright at the feel of wet mouth and wet sex, the slick slide and the heat of his tongue, the sure, hard strokes. She gripped a handful of his hair, horrified to find him still clothed.</p><p>But her orgasm was right there, the crest building fast, rapidly, her body strung too tightly to back off now.</p><p>Castle scraped teeth at her clit and she was off like a shot, crying out her climax into the top of his head, clutching him bodily against her, even as her hips rocked in a filthy dance against his face.</p><p>-----</p><p>He didn't attempt to milk her climax, not right now, not with the way they were both on the edge; he just let her fall back to the mattress. He placed a last kiss at her inside thigh and climbed up her body, laying himself beside her while she keened through her breath, gulping and twitching.</p><p>She sighed and opened her eyes, turned her head to him, all lazy intent and sated green. Her hand drifted up and her knuckles touched his jaw. He kissed softly at the points of her trim nails, down to the soft skin at her wrist.</p><p>"Why are you still dressed?" she whispered. Her breasts were flushed, marked by his teeth.</p><p>"I was afraid I'd come," he said honestly, kissing the swell of her forearm and down to her neat bicep. "As it was, nearly did."</p><p>"I want you inside me," she sighed, like it was such a dream.</p><p>"I want inside you, too," he promised, moving over the tops of her breasts to her throat. She swallowed hard and he felt it, the tremor of lust ripening inside her again, ready for him once more.</p><p>But not ready ready. Not where it mattered. Two or three more orgasms and he'd still have to be careful, have to use his fingers to stretch her, get her used to the slide of him. He wasn't sure he could hold off that long, afraid he might come only halfway sheathed.</p><p>Sheathed. Shit. "I-" Castle growled and lifted his head, horror a tight knot in his chest. "I forgot condoms. Holy fuck. I'm an idiot. Holy fuck, I'm such a fucking moron. God damn it-"</p><p>"What?" she startled, gripping his shoulders and preventing him from getting up. "Where are you going?"</p><p>"I was going to buy them on our way back, shit. I meant to - I wasn't going to do it earlier, only if it seemed - only if you were into it - and no pressure, so I meant-" Fuck. He was going to have leave and hope that little gas station was open all night-</p><p>"No," she cried out, tugging him back sharply by shirt and tie. His tie. He still had his tie on, belt gone, shoes gone, but at least he was halfway presentable. But now Kate was up and straddling his hips, naked and so damn wet he felt it through his pants. "No, no, you're not going anywhere. We don't need condoms. Why would we need a condom?"</p><p>"Kate, honey," he gritted out, breathing slowly to keep from thrusting against her. "Kate. Ought to be smarter than that. There's just - it's safe practice to-"</p><p>"Safe?" she cried. "Who the fuck cares?"</p><p>"Baby, I care. I care about you, and I won't-"</p><p>"You can't get me pregnant, thank God. You said so. And what else is there?"</p><p>"Diseases," he clipped out. Ironic. He'd been so fucking hard and huge before that he'd wondered how in the world he could possibly walk, and now it was not at all a problem. Diseases. Shit-</p><p>"Well, that's entirely not sexy," she muttered, slapping the back of his shoulder. "Castle. I'm notdiseased. You think he'd be breeding me-"</p><p>"Not you," he growled. Fuck, not sexy was right. This was not sexy, this was an epic disaster. "It's for you, Kate. To keep you safe."</p><p>"I don't fucking need safe," she growled, shoving hard on his shoulders. He was caught off balance by the weight of her high on his chest, but he knew he could've recovered.</p><p>He just didn't. He let her take him down, let her perch on his sternum with her sex right there and wet and hot, her hands planted in the mattress to either side of his ear, her hair falling down and curtaining them in an intimate fall of soft scent.</p><p>"You are the safest thing that's ever happened to me," she murmured, dipping to press a kiss to his forehead. And then his eyelid while his lashes fluttered in response. "Safest, bravest, kindest man. I don't want your protection. Not there, not here." Her hand rubbed lightly against him and he groaned.</p><p>Castle clutched her hips, the burn starting again, higher and tighter this time, fiercer somehow for the words she breathed over him.</p><p>"I want this," she sighed. "I want to feel you moving inside me, all of you, for the first time,my first time, Castle. Don't take that from me."</p><p>"No," he cried out, groaning as she worked her hand against him, her body beginning to rock. All sinuous, hard lines and such soft, firm tone. So damn soft, and she smelled like summer and sun and lightning all in one. "No, no, won't take anything at all. Give you everything, anything, give you-"</p><p>"Hush, sweetheart," she murmured. "Skin against skin. That's what I want. Let's get these clothes off of you and see what happens."</p><p>Before his brain could catch up (what brain), she was unbuttoning his shirt and scraping her nails across his nipples. He was a mess of pulsing nerve endings, tangled feelings and lust, and she was naked and wet and grinding against him while she removed his pants.</p><p>Oh, fuck. Two or three wasn't going to happen. He was going to have to go slowly. Have to. Hehad to go slowly.</p><p>At least she was on top. She would control how fast, how hard-</p><p>A broken laugh strangled in his throat. Control? No. Kate Beckett was not one for that kind of control. She was go go go and harder and just fuck me already, break me. </p><p>It was all on him. He did want to protect her. She did need his protection.</p><p>She needed his protection.</p><p>Castle grabbed her by the elbows and pinned her arms to her side, surged upright with his shirt half off of him and his pants around his ankles.</p><p>"This first, Beckett."</p><p>And then he bore her back down to the bed, sliding two fingers inside her.</p><p>-----</p><p>Everything was splitting her open. Everything was pure white heat and the single, undeniable burn of now.</p><p>She shattered apart on an orgasm made violent and brutal by the stretch of his fingers. Her sex clutched and gripped and begged and he kept stroking, kept working her, so that her hips writhed away from him and her body broke.</p><p>Kate cried out, only to find his mouth muffling her, lips ghosting hers, his wide frame over her and holding her down. Panic spurted in the troughs of her climax so that it was all one bristling wave inside her, one continuous loop of need need need. Her body had no reset button, and she found herself clinging desperately to his back, legs splayed wide, and pleading for more, more, just more.</p><p>"I got you," he husked over her, mouth to mouth. "I got you. You can do this."</p><p>She keened and came apart again, this one snapping the bow of her back and collapsing her to the bed, slick with sweat and shaking, the groan in her chest tumbling and echoing in her head.</p><p>His hand now laid heavy at her inside thigh, stroking softly, wet with her own arousal, and she snaked an arm around his neck and dragged him down on top of her. Where she could breathe. Where she could wait a moment to find herself.</p><p>Where his heat pressed insistently, too insistently, and she was shaking, still shaking. Shaking all over with her arms tangled around his neck. He was kissing her, he was telling her good girl, you got this sweetheart, and she'd like to smack him for it but she didn't have the strength or willpower to move.</p><p>"You trying to wear me out?" she mumbled, touching his jaw with her tongue because a kiss required effort. "Make me so tired I fall asleep before we even get there?"</p><p>He chuckled darkly above her, against her, and the sound of his focused arousal sent shudders through her. Oh, no. No, he was not trying to wear her out.</p><p>"Just a pleasant side effect," he hummed. "Watching you come undone is a new favorite past time of mine."</p><p>"Undone," she sighed. "That sounds about right." Unmade. Inside out, a thread pulled and tugged until she had unraveled, collapsed in a heap in the bedsheets. "I want to make you undone too. Don't you want-"</p><p>"Shh," he hushed her. Lips against her throat, nips of his teeth. "I got this, sweetheart. I know what I'm doing to you. Make it as easy as I possibly can."</p><p>She roused at that, riled now, or would be if she could bat away the haze of bliss that had sapped her strength. She fumbled between them, found his cock pressed to her stomach. Stroked the side of him that she could reach until he groaned. "Don't want easy. Not easy at all. Want you."</p><p>"Shit, Kate," he moaned.</p><p>"Is it really?" she murmured. The pleasure had its teeth in her, like a trap, and she loved it. Loved this feeling of him throbbing against her and knowing soon, soon inside. "Shit and hell and-"</p><p>"You," he groaned.</p><p>"Then come on inside, baby. I want you there."</p><p>"Should - should go slower than this."</p><p>She grinned against his mouth - capitulation, and so fast, that conditional should. "Should but don't have to. Wouldn't it be so nice where I want you? Warm and soft and wet."</p><p>"Oh, God, Kate."</p><p>"Let me," she called, her voice practically singing, her triumph so close, so close. She wanted him so badly that she thought, maybe, it was a symptom of a very real, much darker issue. </p><p>She didn't care. </p><p>"Let me," she told him again, nudging to get at his cock where it was trapped. He hadn't exactly been motionless, only as still as Castle ever got, and now his hands were running up and down her flanks, his groans rumbling in his chest. "Let me, baby. Roll over and I can climb on top."</p><p>"Hell," he croaked - she thought he was going to refuse - but then his hands gripped her waist and rolled them both. "-yes." </p><p>She grinned down at him, rubbing that hot, slick place against the hard firm planes of his abs, rubbing so the friction built delicious, painful spirals inside her. His hands at her hips were just shy of bruising and she ground down against him, pushing into the tension, the frisson of pain.</p><p>"Lift up," he groaned. "Lift your hips." He was trying to do it for her, she realized, shifting her back against his propped up knees.</p><p>Oh. Oh, fuck, alignment. He was trying to line her up. Oh, God, she was shaking again. She wanted him so badly. So badly. </p><p>"There it is," he sighed. The head of his cock pressed insistently against her sex, just at the gaping mouth of her opening, just where it should be. She was shaking so badly, and her hands were wrapped in a death grip around his bulging forearms where he held her up, just above him. </p><p>It had happened so fast, and yet now it was so slow, so damn slow. He was keeping her up, teasing them both with the throbbing pulse of his cock where it was nestled against her. She moaned and squirmed in his grip, purposefully relaxed her thighs, bearing down.</p><p>Castle shouted, her eyes flew open wide, wide, staring down at him as his cock cleaved through her.</p><p>"Wait, wait, wait," he was chanting. "Oh, God, Kate, you have to go slowly, fuck. Fuck. You can't - just rock, honey. Rock your hips."</p><p>She couldn't breathe. His cock was barely inside her, his head so wide that she felt stretched beyond her capacity, and yet - yet - those two boys had come out this way. Their big heads had come right through here, so she was sure as hell going to have him inside her.</p><p>"Easy, gentle," he husked. He didn't sound gentle or easy. He sounded rough, and she wanted fucking rough, wanted him to surge upward and take all the terrible, burning intensity away and just do it. Break her open. "Rock your hips, sweetheart. That's it."</p><p>She leaned forward over him, going slow enough that even Castle groaned, her elbows digging into her own hips because she still had a grip on his forearms she couldn't seem to break. </p><p>Her breasts skimmed his chest. Castle let out a strangled sound, his eyes frantic on hers, and she knew he was losing it.</p><p>Kate, suspended impossibly at the head of his cock, rocked her hips to test it out, see just how-</p><p>Oh, fuck.</p><p>She whined and closed her eyes, knees coming inward and squeezing his ribs, not sure, not sure, but no-</p><p>No. Wanted this. Had to have this. Had to have him, take him.</p><p>So she pushed herself back up off his chest, positioning herself tall and upright, her breath heaving so that her nipples raked the air, her whole body begging for pressure, that pressure, that crushing grip that would break everything.</p><p>And then she widened her knees and sank down on him.</p><p>"Fuck," he roared, and his wild thrust burned like fire deep inside her, a terrible tearing pain that was suddenly dampened by the entirely strange, wonderful feeling of his orgasm going off, like a mouth tonguing her in places no one had ever touched.</p><p>-----</p><p>She was wide-eyed and fast-blinking above him, staring down as if caught.</p><p>Hooked like a fish.</p><p>His heart was still beating the rhythm of his release, though his cock began to ease its terrible urgency and his breath returned. He drew air raggedly, realized he was still gripping her hips as if he could at all control the thing that rode him.</p><p>Her lips parted. A low whine came from her throat and her chin dropped, head falling forward, hair brushing her shoulders where it wasn’t snaked against her skin with sweat. </p><p>He found new meaning for fall on your sword, the way her body was taking him, had tried to take him. And as his cock softened, she began to tremble.</p><p>“Oh, God,” he groaned, now capable of words and yet his thinking still scrambled. Incoherence roared in his head. “Do better than that. Don’t cry, baby, no, don’t worry. It’s not over. Not even begun.”</p><p>She keened something, that whine in her voice, and he scrambled to sit upright, unable to withdraw for fear he wouldn’t get back to this place - half inside her, planted like a claim in her soil.</p><p>He felt her hiccup of relief as his hips shifted and his cock began to press insistently against her front wall, and as he lurched into a sitting position, she drew an arm around his neck and one low at his waist and clung to him.</p><p>“Might even better this way,” he soothed, half-sentences still falling out of his mouth. An orgasm by surprise was usually an entirely rare thing for him, and yet she had managed to do it twice today and more besides. “Better now that I’m not quite so hard, snug inside you.”</p><p>She gulped against his neck, their chests damp with perspiration, skin to skin friction. But her mouth opened and her tongue touched his throat and now he was shivering, trembling from just the way she held him so close.</p><p>“You’re still so huge,” she roughed against his jaw. Her hips shimmied and they both cried out at the sensation, her first movement into him since impaling her. “So very big.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he said gruffly, closing his eyes. “Recover fast. Maybe - little too fast, way this is going.”</p><p>“Going good,” she purred in his ear. And now he felt her tremors not for surprise, not pain either, but the very sharp edge of her own orgasm. </p><p>Denied for so long, so well-practiced at holding herself off, she was slick and desperate for release. </p><p>“I want to know what it’s like,” she growled. “Fuck me, Castle.”</p><p>He groaned, pretty sure that his cock was hard enough for that, but equally sure she hadn’t even begun to take him yet. “Hell, Beckett. You have to let me work deeper inside you first.”</p><p>“Yes,” she crowed in his ear, and her hips bounced in the hot, tight, wet cave of their joined bodies.</p><p>He groaned at the feeling of her tug and release, the fucking hot mouth of her sex where it pulled at him, like she was nursing at his body, that insistent tug and tug again as she instinctively tried to draw him in.</p><p>He hadn’t managed to drive up high enough to seat himself, and yet her eagerness was rabid. Her hips shivered again and he cursed her name, gripping her hips to make her still.</p><p>“Careful, careful,” he got out.</p><p>“I don’t want careful,” she growled, shimmying her hips again. </p><p>“Careful of me,” he hissed, tightening his fingers over her hipbones to make her stop. “And you will not get anywhere squirming like this. You have to be - coaxed open, love. Probed deeper and deeper.”</p><p>Her lips turned up at his cheek, a self-satisfied smile, and he realized he’d basically agreed, and told her exactly how to fuck herself.</p><p>Which she began to do, lifting up on her knees so that his cock was withdrawn - though she cried out in frustration and immediately had her hand at his base, a near-crippling grip, aiming him back as she sank down again.</p><p>“Fuck!” he cried out, his flesh cleaving hers. “Fuck, fuck, you’re killing me.”</p><p>“Pretty sure it’s mutual,” she grit out, hips working in nasty little jerks as she tried to wriggle down on him.</p><p>“Not like this,” he snapped, losing his resolve entirely.</p><p>Castle gripped the back of her neck and clamped his hand tighter on her hip and then he rolled her to the mattress. She cried out when she hit the sheets, a sharp flare of something he had no words for her - none at all, whatever dark terrible thing that was - but she lifted her knees and planted her feet, surging up for him.</p><p>Thankfully, his cock had been jostled from her body, and instead of plunging himself right back into that heat he never ever wanted to leave, he cupped her with his hand, protective and possessive.</p><p>She mewled and arched into his touch, eyes slamming shut. Her need took over, rather than her pride, and he stroked two fingers roughly inside her. She was so thick and swollen, dripping with sex and his own seed, and his fingers squelched satisfyingly as he pumped into her. </p><p>Her orgasm rolled over in a bright and amazing wave, her mouth open and those cries coming out, vocal and urgent in a way he’d not seen from her yet. </p><p>Still he stroked, working a third wide finger inside her walls, stretching and pressing her flesh apart, that tight ring that tried to resist him. She was boneless now instead of rigid, as if passive to his ability to pleasure her, and though her hips bucked up into him, her eyes were shut and her chest heaving acceptance.</p><p>“Very good, sweetheart,” he murmured. Kissed her open mouth and stole the rapid breath. “Just like this, love. Let me widen you up for me, for your first time. I want to take you so badly, stroke inside you so deep. Seat my cock in your body.”</p><p>She was trembling again, that held off need she seemed to rise up against first and foremost. He was learning now. His elbow dug into the mattress to keep himself above her, let her body writhe against the hard wall of his chest and thighs as she fought for orgasm.</p><p>She came again, a rolling thing that made her eyes flare open and her whole breath cease, and he watched as the lights bloomed inside her. He never stopped working his fingers, his knuckles deeper, his thrusts forceful, but this time, this last orgasm, she was no longer rigid with it.</p><p>He guided his cock to her entrance within the cradle of his palm, widening two fingers now inside her sex, stroking in small, sharp tugs inside her walls. Her head rolled and her mouth came to his chin, sucking, weak kisses, even as her knee rose at his flank and she wrapped her leg around him.</p><p>“Now,” she whispered. “Now, Rick-”</p><p>He rocked his hips and thrust inside her. </p><p>Kate groaned and arched into him, her body slick with sweat, her eyes rolling back.</p><p>He pulled back only enough to give him leverage and he thrust deeper this time, groaning in concert with her as her sex swallowed him. “Kate, Kate, Kate,” he whispered, entranced, entangled. He had meant to go slowly, but his hips drove him forward again and now she was meeting him, she had the rhythm she wanted and urged out of him.</p><p>Skin met with grunted sighs, thick flesh sinking into thick flesh, the wet heat and the pull of bodies. She gripped him everywhere, his cock first but his ass, the back of his neck, his knee where her leg twined around him. He held himself up with one elbow and stroked his free hand at her body, the sweat-damp places at her back, the taut muscle at her abs, the heated softness of her thigh.</p><p>He could make love to her forever this way.</p><p>Her arm low around his waist tightened and she rocked forward into him, drove him back only far enough that they lay on their sides. Her body met his with that slow and fizzing joy, her eyes locked on his. Their mouths touched, lips parted and the glance of tongues, her breathing erratic and hard, his desperate. </p><p>He thrust deeper now, finding himself home inside her, snug and tight, so that he hated to withdraw. Did it only to hear the mewl she let out at the slow drag of friction.</p><p>“Oh,” she gasped suddenly. Her eyes sought his, her mouth opening. “I’m - coming again.”</p><p>Her surprise blossomed as her orgasm crested, silent and sure. She was frantic thrusts of her hips against him, tight and shallow, and he held her to his chest and let her work out her own aftershocks. <br/>Her body clamped down around him and he gritted his teeth and hung on, determined to show her more than this. He’d come inside her within the first five seconds of entering her body, and he was going to last this time, damn it.</p><p>Kate’s body curled into his, her leg dropping from his hip. Suddenly she was even tighter, narrower than she had been, now with her thighs together. He groaned, deep in his chest, clutching her, and she dragged her hands to his face and cupped his jaw.</p><p>“No more,” she husked. She sounded screamed out. “No more holding back. You won’t hurt me at all. Just fuck me.”</p><p>-----</p><p>He did.</p><p>Drove her to her back and pounded inside her. Her teeth rattled, her ribs bruised, her pelvis popped open wide.</p><p>Sharp, bursting pain melted in the white hot burn of his thrusts, singeing her heart and electrocuting her body. She was a current, a flame, she was torn apart by the fierce intense ravage of need.</p><p>She cried out as he struck something deep, harder, rearranging her insides. Making room for himself and somehow - some way - filling up that place inside that had been hollow and void and aching.</p><p>“Come on,” she husked, drawing a weak arm around his neck. She was fucked out and fucked so well and she just wanted him to come. “Come on, love.”</p><p>“Beautiful,” he groaned. Half-words tumbled out of his mouth. Grunts that became love, baby, love, honey, sweetheart and more. Things she felt pummeled into her soul this way, pressed deep, past all the wound and trauma, past the pain into total complete escape.</p><p>Escape. Freedom. And his brutality refined her like gold, like iron, pain made perfect.</p><p>His hand gripped her neck in a sudden spasm, a terrifyingly intense possession that nevertheless made her heart turn inside out and split open for him.</p><p>“Kate,” he breathed against her lips. She opened her mouth for him and his kiss was imperfect and awkward, too much tongue, not enough breath, but he was groaning and going still, calm in the eye of the storm. “I love you, Kate.”</p><p>And then he climaxed. His orgasm was a roar inside her head and a heat between her legs, painting her inside with the fierceness of their combined need. He fell down on top of her and his body crushed her sex in that exact right way, her clit going off in a burst of over-stimulation.</p><p>She contracted around him, found her orgasm redoubled by the heavy rod of his cock inside her, something to grip as she fell over.</p><p>The fire went through her in white streaks of stars, scourging and pure, white, so white, the whole sky of her self in flames.</p><p>-----</p><p>When Castle lifted up, arms shaking with the intensity of everything they’d done, her eyes slowly opened.</p><p>“Hey,” she husked, blinking slowly, the golden light spilling around her face. Her arms dropped from his waist and she whined in her throat, lifted her hands to caress his hips which were still pressed to hers.</p><p>He dropped his head, breathing through the still-gutting way she touched him, and he lowered himself back down to her, now on his elbows. Their chests touched and she hummed, a lazy and slow sound.</p><p>“Hey,” he said finally, sounding inane in his pulled-apart weakness. “Forgive me. Feel like I survived a bomb.”</p><p>She laughed, curling up into him, and he remembered to draw her body to his, flopping to his back on the mattress. She nestled in against him, kittening up, her arm tucked up into her chest and her fingers on his sternum, stroking softly.</p><p>“A bomb,” she mouthed. Another purr in her chest that he felt through his bones.</p><p>“Think I blew up.”</p><p>Her laughter this time was a breath of air against his neck, and he shivered, drawing her in tighter, wishing he had the strength or resources to find the covers. He was lying in a wet spot, the whole bed had to be soaked with their sweat and his come, even her arousal, which had been so wet. So thickly wet.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>He couldn’t even get it up. Well, he could, but he was broken down now, and it was within his control again. So he wouldn’t be getting it up. No, damn no, he was giving her the chance to recover.</p><p>All in all, that hadn’t gone badly at all. That had been very - fuck - very good. He knew it had for her as well, the way she cuddled to him now as if the past week had never happened.</p><p>As if the past three years had never happened.</p><p>Castle hooked his hand behind her knee and drew her leg a little higher, repositioning the angle of her thigh to keep her away from his broken down cock. She was drowsy and pliable over him, and he hoped she would sleep.</p><p>Before she went, he couldn’t help asking, “Was it everything you hoped?”</p><p>She hummed something that turned feral, a growl of contentment like a predator cat rather than a kitten. “More,” she said, a darkness in her voice that curled at the base of his spine like a fresh grip of arousal. She stroked two fingers against his nipple. “Fishing for compliments? Surely you know how good you are in bed.”</p><p>“Never come before I even managed to get seated. Never fucked someone without a condom. Never-”</p><p>“Ah,” she murmured. “Good.”</p><p>As if that could shut him up. “Never wanted someone so badly. Never felt it like this before, wanting home, as if touching you deep inside meant something to my soul.”</p><p>She mumbled something against his chest, and he could tell she was struggling against sleep. Sleep. Pulling her down inevitably after the marathon session they’d just had.</p><p>He hoped she took his words down with her.</p><p>“You’re right, Kate. It was more. So much more. And I know you know, you felt it too, how we connect, touch, how it’s the same for us. When you said, no more holding back, I felt it too. How we are together.”<br/>She whined into his neck, but her body was entirely slack. He didn’t try to touch her more than body to body, skin cooling; he knew she was already overstimulated and could pitch all too easily into frustration if he tried to pet her.</p><p>But he kept talking, because it was vital that she know the truth of things.</p><p>“I have you, Kate. Sleep. I’ve got you. I’m never letting you go, never leaving you on the side of the road, never letting even your own self isolate you. You’re here with me. You’re with me. We’ll make it together. So just sleep.”</p><p>Her whine pitched higher, her lashes dragged against her cheeks.</p><p>“Sleep,” he whispered, commanding. A press of a kiss to her forehead. “Sleep, because in another few hours, I’m going to wake you with my mouth between your legs.”</p><p>She let out a huffing breath, the light sound of her curse in his ear as she finally fell asleep. </p><p>-----</p><p>Mommy.</p><p>She woke from sleep, deeply down to instantly aware, her body thrumming at the call. James. And how she knew that, she had no idea, only that despite their voices sounding exactly alike - baby high and soft - she heard all of James in it.</p><p>Mommy.</p><p>She grunted as she untangled her body from Castle’s, nearly fell to her knees when she climbed out of bed.</p><p>Whoa, fuck.</p><p>Shaky. Legs felt like rubberbands as she headed for the closet to find clothes. Her thighs were scraped raw, the sensitive places almost too sensitive. </p><p>And between her legs-</p><p>Well. If her insides had been completely rearranged, she wouldn’t be surprised. She had received quite a lot of blows to her guts during training, and there was something to this that felt the same. Tender. Moving the wrong way might shake something loose inside her.</p><p>And yet her sex was swollen and thick, tingling with awareness in a way she’d never experienced before. Not even with Castle’s mouth on her-</p><p>Oh, he had made promises last night, hadn’t he?</p><p>Mommy.</p><p>Kate dropped one of Castle’s t-shirts over her head and figured it would have to work for now. James didn’t sound scared or even all that urgent, but she wanted him to know that someone would come when he called.</p><p>But, fuck, mounting the stairs felt almost impossible. Even as her quads quaked with every step, something else propelled her upward, new spurts of energy and power that seemed to encircle her hips from her core like a superhero’s utility belt.</p><p>Weird, but this was actually the best she’d felt in months - in a year. Sex with Castle, all she’d needed, right?</p><p>She was definitely going to posit that theory the moment she woke him up. She wasn’t even tired any more. She was shaky as a colt, but she thought that was more due to using muscles never before used rather than elixir byproducts weighing her down.</p><p>Mommy.</p><p>“I’m here, baby.” Kate stepped on the pedal to release the baby gate, feeling warm and flushed and pretty damn good, all things considered. She jogged into the room, guided only by the moonlight blue through the windows, and she came to a stop at the boys’ bed.</p><p>Mommy.</p><p>Kate jerked to a halt an instant before she’d been about to reach for him. </p><p>Oh, James was awake all right, but he hadn’t said a word. His eyes were open and now he was stirring from his corner, blinking sleepily and lifting his arms for her, his rag doll in one hand.</p><p>She lurched forward, came to her knees before the low bed, gathering him against her body. His feet caught her ribs as he tried to climb up closer, and she held him to her neck, her heart pounding.</p><p>She had heard him. </p><p>She had thought she had heard him. Calling her. But now that she was trying to pinpoint the sound of him, she had instead only a sense of him. A sense of him she felt even now, his cheek against her collarbone, one fist in her shirt.</p><p>He’d been awake and simply wanting her. And she’d heard and come for him.</p><p>“Oh, God.” What did it even mean? What did that do to him, to have this in his head? “Are you okay, baby? Was it a bad dream?” she whispered, carrying him away from the bed so they wouldn’t wake Wyatt. </p><p>Standing before the wide window, the blue moonlight touching everything, Kate slowly rocked James in her arms. She realized belatedly that his weight wasn’t even heavy to her tonight, that she felt like she could stand here forever if he needed it.</p><p>Whatever call she thought she had heard, she didn’t hear it now. Whatever connection she and James had, it apparently had a valve, a way to close down the channel, narrow the flow. Because her panic and whiteouts hadn’t affected James, as Castle had wished they would, and his need of her didn’t automatically override her senses, even though she might wish it.</p><p>James wasn’t an early warning system, no. And Kate wasn’t being given a road to perfect motherhood. However it worked, James or Kate, one of them, was cutting it off when it might be harmful.</p><p>What a relief. She wasn’t going to damage his psyche with her own issues. He’d have plenty of issues of his own, but they would be his own, and he had at least, now, a chance for a solid foundation. </p><p>“You’re okay, aren’t you?” she whispered, kissing his forehead. “We were both so tired that our defenses were down, huh? You just wanted your mommy, and this time, baby, it worked.”</p><p>James wriggled down into her, drawing his arms in, the rag doll under his chin. She stroked his back with one hand and swayed before the window, grateful to have this moment at all. Grateful far more than she could express or even believe in.</p><p>She kissed his temple, rested her lips at his cheek, breathing him in. “Love you, baby. I love you so much.” She cupped the back of his head and headed slowly back to the bed.</p><p>James was already going slack in her arms, falling back to sleep with the warmth of her under his cheek. </p><p>She lowered him towards the toddler bed and he squirmed into his corner, curled up tight. Kate smoothed a finger over his cheek. “Night, baby.”</p><p>“Night, Mommy,” he sighed softly.</p><p>She sank to the floor in surprise, and even though James was already asleep, she couldn’t yet move away.</p><p>She simply watched the shadows of leaves in the moonlight over his face, the rise and fall of his little body as he slept.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle shot upright in bed with a burning, wet mouth around his already-stiffening cock.</p><p>“Fuck!” he shouted, awareness brutal and livid between his hands.</p><p>He had fisted her hair. She was going down on him, moaning around his erection. She was swallowing him and he had her head trapped in his hands and he couldn’t let go.</p><p>A terrible sound came out of his chest and then he was exploding down her throat, his orgasm ripped out of him with the force of both of their needs, his purely instinctual and hers somehow dark, branding his soul with the fierceness of it.</p><p>She suckled his shaft and lifted her head, his strength entirely deserting him with his release, and she lapped at his balls with her tongue.</p><p>“Oh, well, fucking good morning to you too,” he croaked, falling back to the bed. His heart was slamming against his rib cage.</p><p>“Not morning,” she husked. She sounded choked up - by his come. Holy fuck, she’d swallowed all of him and hadn’t even come up for air. She hadn’t gone at him like that before, in all the many times she’d held him in her mouth, and something about her eager whole-hearted approach made his insides into jelly.</p><p>“Come ‘ere,” he mumbled, curling his fingers around her arms and tugging her up. She crawled up his body, collapsed on top of him. Directly on top, her warmth to his heat, one of her thighs falling between his legs and exerting a mild, comfortable pressure.</p><p>He sighed into the top of her head, wrapped his arms around her back. She nuzzled into his neck as he tried to recover, his brain and body on something of a disconnect.</p><p>“Not morning,” he said finally. “Plenty of night left to make love to you.”</p><p>She shivered over him, her fingers circling his nipple. He caught her hand, raised it to his lips for a clumsy kiss.</p><p>“You happy?” he said thoughtlessly, so happy himself he couldn’t help but want to share. Connect. But a moment after it left his lips, he wished he hadn’t said it.</p><p>Three years, two boys living, others gone. How could she be happy? How could-</p><p>“Mm, happy,” she sighed. “Strange. To be so happy. Must be the taste of your come in my mouth.”<br/>Castle grunted, the shock of arousal jolting through him at her words. “You’re seriously hot,” he growled at her, cupping the back of her head with one hand, gripping her ass with the other. “Talking to me like that.”</p><p>“Too much-?”</p><p>“Hell, no. Don’t you dare stop.”</p><p>She smiled against his neck, and he squeezed her ass cheek before rolling her over and pressing her into the mattress. Her hair was a tumble against the sheet, her eyes filled with the moonlight coming in through the window.</p><p>“Hey, baby,” he murmured, dropping a soft kiss to her lips. And then a little deeper, sliding his tongue against hers until she groaned. He lifted his head and stroked his fingers against her opened lips. “Is that what I taste like from your mouth?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she rasped, blinking heavily. </p><p>“Veal and wine,” he reminded her.</p><p>She drew in a breath and rocked her hips up against him. Not subtle, but he figured it was her way of saying hell yes.</p><p>“Salmon and lemon butter,” he murmured, dragging his body down hers. Her thighs were tense under his hands, but he spread her knees apart and used his shoulders to hold her open, put his nose to her groin.</p><p>“Oh, Castle,” she whispered.</p><p>“Now to taste you,” he said against her inside thigh. “And then I’ll share.”</p><p>“Please,” she whined, her hips riding up against his lips, a shocking little kiss, wet and salty.</p><p>He touched his tongue to the swollen bud of her clit and she gasped, clutching at him with a fierceness that was desperate.</p><p>Already so desperate. </p><p>Just meant he was going to have to take his time, make her truly insane with it, draw it out until she had been on the edge for so long she wouldn’t be able to help but fall.</p><p>“Love you, sweetheart,” he murmured against her sex, and then stroked two fingers inside her without warning.</p><p>-----</p><p>His fingers inside her weren’t enough, weren’t enough, she needed more. “Up,” she gasped, writhing against his mouth. “Up here, get up here, Castle. Right now.”</p><p>He sucked at her clit and she whined, twisting his ear, drawing her knee up under his armpit, trying to force him to climb her. It was the only limb she had free, his hand around one of her wrists pinning her, her other hand wrapped around his ear to hang on, one of her legs under his body where he’d pinned her.</p><p>His fingers stroked hard and she yelped, the intensity of that touch jolting deep. But she wanted his cock inside her, wanted it badly, now that she’d had it once. Addicted. She could feel him hard again, feel just how thickly his erection was against the top of her foot where he was crushing her.</p><p>“Castle, now.” She yanked on his ear and he growled against her cunt, but he started crawling up her body, kissing her skin with his wet mouth, his nose and cheeks slick with her arousal. </p><p>His tongue in her belly button made her cry out, and her knee slammed into his chin. </p><p>“Shit, sorry, sorry,” she gasped, curling up to try and touch him, but he shoved her back down, heat in his eyes. “Castle, please-”</p><p>His hips rocked lewdly against hers and she groaned, gripping his ass in both hands now, free to touch him how she wanted, free to have him.</p><p>“Kiss me,” he murmured, before nosing down against her, nuzzling. His lips parted and she opened her mouth to him, whimpering into the taste he caressed her tongue with.</p><p>Oh, God, herself on him, him on her, the mixture of wine and lemon. Veal and butter. She surged up into him, missed the moment where it happened, only felt the sudden and undeniable invasion of his cock.</p><p>She choked on his kiss, choked on him pushing deep inside her. There was a second, a twinge, a cramp of muscles - and then he withdrew an inch and thrust deeper.</p><p>Kate cried out, hips tilting up to him for more. He growled against her mouth and sucked earnestly at her jaw, her throat. A hand came to her breast and tweaked hard, and she gasped, fireworks flaring too hot through her body. He massaged her breast with one hand, milk leaking between them, his thrusting regular, smooth, intense.</p><p>She met his hips, met his strokes as best she could, clinging to his flanks, her legs helpless against the mattress. She was being pummeled, his cock striking deep, his mouth open over her collarbone, his whole body a leashed, possessive power against her, compact and coiled as he withdrew, lean and hard as he thrust inside her.</p><p>His rhythm caught her up, spinning her dizzy and tight, too high, too high.</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>His mouth against hers again, smudging, rubbing, his fingers kneading her breast so that his thumb trapped her nipple and mangled it. Every time he gripped her breast, it twisted something between her legs, so that the force of his cock hitting home was redoubled, intensity upon intensity, her body being shoved up the ladder of her need.</p><p>She was going to fall.</p><p>She was going to-</p><p>“Come for me, Kate.”</p><p>She broke, crying out her release as she contracted around his cock. </p><p>And then he withdrew, a slow and torturous retreat that left her shaking, zipping with the aftershocks of that orgasm. She clutched at him, gulping down breaths, trying to find her voice. “Where - you going?”</p><p>“My turn, love,” he rasped against her belly, already dragging her upright. “Sit in my lap. Let me show you something good.”</p><p>She blinked away her torpor, struggling to move, trying to straddle his hips.</p><p>“No, baby, not that way. Press your back to my chest.”</p><p>Kate stared at him a moment, the lust so thick she couldn’t think her way through the logistics of what he was saying. Her ass?</p><p>She turned around, a clumsy fall across his thighs, but his hands were there, already lifting her into place. His back was against the headboard now, his knees partially drawn up, and he angled her hips so that his fierce cock rubbed against her swollen sex.</p><p>“Oh, God,” she moaned, shaking now, again, pleasure crackling through her whole body.  She felt herself rocking against him, trying to find him again; she couldn’t control it. “What are you doing to me?”</p><p>His mouth touched the back of her shoulder, a kiss with teeth. His hand released her hip and traveled up, hefting her breast, squeezing, letting go to draw her hair away from her neck. She tilted her head, drowsy, too heavy with lust to hold herself up. His tongue touched her nape and his mouth followed, sucking lightly.</p><p>“Salty here,” he hummed.</p><p>She was vibrating with need already, and she had just come. He was holding her in place against his chest, but his fingers were teasing light circles across her skin. Her belly, under her breasts, around her nipple.</p><p>“Castle,” she whined.</p><p>“Say it,” he murmured. “Tell me exactly what you want.”</p><p>She didn’t know how this was supposed to work. She didn’t know, but she’d take anything, anything. </p><p>“Talk to me, love. You’re so ready for me. Tell me what you want.”</p><p>“Just - do it,” she growled. “Fuck me. I need you. I just want you.”</p><p>He growled and both hands came to her breasts, twisting hard against her nipples. She cried out and arched off his chest, into his hands, and he tormented her breasts. Twisting, kneading, his breath hot against her shoulder, kissing her with these light rewards of tongue and lips for every brutal assault to her breasts.</p><p>She was rocking her hips against the impressive erection still burgeoning between his legs. She found herself clutching his knees and leaning forward, trying to grind herself against him. Into him. His hands, his cock, her ass rubbing back against his abs.</p><p>She needed it. Whatever it was, however it was supposed to fit, to work. She’d never known-</p><p>One of his hands abandoned her breast and she whined, eyes dragging open to turn her head and plead with him. Go back, don’t stop. But before she could say anything, his fingers slicked through her sex.</p><p>“Whoa, fuck!”</p><p>He grinned wolfishly and kissed her mouth, tongue shoving inside her in the same manner that he was spearing her with his fingers. She rode the thrust, capitulated to his mouth, eager for him to work her.</p><p>He broke form her mouth, too soon, nipped her jaw, nudged her head away from him. His voice was rough when it came. “Here we are, nice and wet, sweetheart, so slick and wet for me, but still so fucking tight.”</p><p>“Please,” she whimpered.</p><p>“You want this?”</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>“Tell me. Use words, baby.”</p><p>“Want you, already said I want you, I want you-”</p><p>“Want me inside you? Making you shatter around my cock?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Deep, so deep like this, dragging against your front wall every time.”</p><p>Front wall, deep, “I don’t care, don’t care, just please fuck me.”</p><p>His fingers raked over her clit and she bucked. He pushed a hand between her shoulder blades, tipping her forward, and she thought wildly, oh God, my ass, before she felt him.</p><p>His cock and his fingers together, teasing her sex, lining himself up. She caught on fast, using her knees to support her, angling her hips as she gripped his thighs for balance. He penetrated with one, slow thrust, her sex clenching and gripping him in welcome.</p><p>“There it is, oh yes, oh God, Kate, you feel so fucking good.” His voice trembled. </p><p>She dropped her cheek to his knee and one of her knees gave way, jolting her down on his cock. He barked a curse, dragged her body back against his chest, the angle so severe she began to shake.</p><p>He didn’t move. She shifted her hips and cried out at the feeling, the way his cock seemed to be carving out a channel inside her. Had he been this massive before? Had she felt like she was going to choke on him like she did now?</p><p>“Rick,” she moaned. </p><p>“You’re so tight,” he gasped. His heart was pounding at her back, her own heart beating too hard against her ribs. “You’re so perfectly tight. Oh, fuck, I don’t know how I’ll fit.”</p><p>She whimpered, hips jerking at the sound of his voice in her ear, and his cock suddenly slammed home.</p><p>Kate climaxed hard, biting her tongue as she clamped down. Castle husked love into her back, his face buried against her shoulder, and now his fingers rubbed fierce circles over her clit and against the flesh where they were joined. She screamed and orgasmed again, her teeth in his knees as she rode the wicked things he was doing to her.</p><p>“Fuck, can’t-” Castle growled into her back and then he was fucking her, hard jolts of his cock deep inside her, barely any withdrawal. Deep, deep, deep. Again, again, again. She was writhing with the overstimulation, seeking escape, seeking the oblivion of the burn, and she whited out as she came again.</p><p>Pure white. Blinding white.</p><p>And then he was spilling hotly inside her body, crushing her clit in his fingers, trapping her in the vee made by his legs and chest, caging her.</p><p>She slumped back to him, sweat-drenched and buzzing, head filled with white noise, mouth slack. She turned her head into him, touched her lips to his skin. </p><p>“Hold me,” she thought she said. Couldn’t have said, and yet again, “Hold me so tight.”</p><p>His arms came around her, his body shifting to lay her down, his cock slipping out. Her knees bumped together, his thighs behind hers, and she sank into the mattress even as he sank into her.</p><p>He draped over her like a cape, arms wrapping her up, one of his knees sliding between her thighs. Her head to the pillow, his cheek to her cheek and keeping her down.</p><p>She heard it as she sank into darkness, heard it right against her ear in the same voice that had described how wet and tight she was. Same voice, same shuddering effect:</p><p>“Never let you go, Kate. Never.”</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Before this, he’d always have been slipping out of some foreign bed and gathering his shoes, his gun, and heading for the door.</p><p>Before Kate, there had been rules for these encounters.</p><p>Not at his place, not at his target’s place - neutral ground, an anonymous hotel or dark alley or front seat of the car. He had never wanted to give away his home base and he couldn’t go where he didn’t know the lay of the land better than the subject. Neutral ground was the first rule.</p><p>This was anything but neutral.</p><p>Even as he spooned Kate, cradling her body into the cove of his own, safe harbor, he found himself fighting off sleep, battling back this new vulnerability. </p><p>The second rule of his encounters had always been - don’t let your guard down. No one was ever to be trusted, no woman was anything more than a target. There’d been repeat performances, but that had been all it ever was - a performance. All of his life, mirrors and smoke.</p><p>And now he was curled up around a woman who had literally stabbed in the back. He found that amusing. Before Kate, no one had ever affected him deeply enough to exhaust him like this. But it was almost as if she connected to his very soul, riding a current so strong she sucked the life out of him.</p><p>His little succubus. </p><p>Beautiful siren.</p><p>He’d gladly fall asleep wrapped around her, even if he woke bleeding to death. What a way to go. Perfect. To have had her at all, to have had this one perfect day: swimming with James, teaching Wyatt to run in the sand, sunbathing with Kate, stripping naked on a rock and touching each other, taking her back here to watch stupid kid shows, shower, giving dinner to the boys, and then their own dinner date.</p><p>Just that alone. That alone was more than he’d ever had. A day with his family. And now this on top of everything, a night so intense, so full, and Kate here in his arms, Kate so alive, so alive in his arms-</p><p>He opened his eyes to the view of her, had to nuzzle down into her neck to smell that particular sweat and sex and honey scent of her. Lemon butter. He grinned and nipped her ear, but she didn’t even twitch. Gone, just that fast, that hard.</p><p>Well, fuck, he certainly hoped so. He might have said he’d been pulling out all the stops, but truth was, he’d been in control of things maybe forty percent of tonight. Beckett dragging him back up her body, Beckett rubbing herself against him, Beckett pleading for him to fuck her.</p><p>Ah, hell. He was stirring. Not a good idea. Turn it off, asshole.</p><p>In the morning, when she woke on her own, he would-</p><p>No, wait. Actually. He would stroke her hair back from her face and kiss her lightly, all over, mouth to her eyelids, her nose, her temple, her jaw, her neck, down. Oh, down. Her stomach was soft as sin, and her muscles twitched under his mouth. He could pet her all day, hands over her stomach, around her ribs, over her ass, circle her thighs, tease her sex.</p><p>Oh, all day. He wanted. Wanted.</p><p>Loved her. He loved her. This beautiful girl, something in her eyes when she looked at him, combined with the fierce way she loved those boys, and the wild urgency of her heart just absolutely killed him. He was hers. Always would be.</p><p>No one had ever had him before. A few had wanted to, actually many had tried to stake their claim on him. But the rules. The spy life. Every encounter had been a lie. Would always have been a lie, would always be a lie. </p><p>His life was a lie. He was a shadow, built to be a man no one took notice of, built for darkness. Built. A machine. He’d taken to the elixir unlike any of the others, had been blind and deaf and dumb to everything other than the pride of being first in his father’s esteem.</p><p>All of it a lie. The truth?</p><p>The truth was the way Kate had said am I going to have to deal with you too as she’d stood over Black’s body, her face splattered with the man’s blood. The truth was the way Kate had arched her back so that her breasts had thrust into his hands, eager for him. The truth was the thrumming trust in her voice as she’d said hold me tighter.</p><p>The truth of life was love. Maybe she never loved him back, and as much as that ached, fuck did it ache, the fact was that he loved her. That had changed him. It was changing him. He was made new by loving her. </p><p>Damn, he had turned into a sentimental bastard, hadn’t he? No more spy life for him; he couldn’t imagine going back to that. Some encounter in the dark with a woman who didn’t know what she knew? No.</p><p>No.</p><p>Only Kate. Forever. Even if it was only this.</p><p>Castle stroked her hair back from her neck and placed his lips softly to her nape. His kiss was minimal, light; he was unwilling to disturb her. He would do his absolute best to give her - anything.</p><p>If he could give her anything at all. God. Anything at all.</p><p>Hold me tighter.</p><p>He could do that. He would do that.</p><p>Castle shifted over her, pressing her body into the mattress with his own. He could feel her every breath, slow and steady, and her heart, reassuringly constant.</p><p>Hold her tighter. He would remember this. </p><p>-----<br/>She had a dream. </p><p>She was dreaming.</p><p>She was dreaming that her breasts ached, pulled like dough. But when she looked down, the pumps were replaced with babies. Baby boys. One for each side. In her arms. One smiled up at her, the other kept nursing, furious and concentrating. </p><p>Terror trickled down her throat.</p><p>Had she been pregnant again? Was she pregnant now? Was this endless, never to stop?</p><p>She stared down at the two newborns strapped against her, some new contraption she didn’t remember before, a new way to torture her, but one of the babies nursed so fiercely that he made her jolt with pain.</p><p>She rubbed her thumb over his ear and he startled in return, looked up at her. His face was shaped like hers, but his eyes were so blue they were nearly silver. So blue. Like his daddy’s.</p><p>James. His fingers spread over her breast and he nuzzled into her, easier with it this time, easier now that she knew him. She knew him. He was hers. He went back to nursing, and she turned to look at the other one, the smiling one. He was waving a tiny little newborn fist at her, trying to reach out and garner her attention.</p><p>She scratched the top of his head lightly with her finger. He wriggled in pleasure, beaming up at her. Wyatt.</p><p>They were hers. She had them.</p><p>And then the door opened, the door to the room that only opened to take them away, and she went rigid, and the babies stiffened and went too quiet, too still, but it was him.</p><p>He was standing just inside the room with a gun in each hand, his face caked with grime and oil and blood, blood in the cracks of his skin, and when he grinned at her, he had Wyatt’s grin. </p><p>She shivered.</p><p>It’s okay, he said. I’m here now. Time to go, Kate.</p><p>How had he done it? She glanced past his bulk in the doorway and saw the trail of dead in the hall. She looked back at him but he was kneeling before her and unlacing the straps from her ankles, his fingers gentle but strong. And then up to the straps around her biceps, and the loosening felt like chains dropping.</p><p>Time to go, Kate.</p><p>She looked at the babies, one at each breast, realized she was naked. I can’t carry them.</p><p>We’ll trade, he murmured against her temple. He was kissing her hairline, her nose. Take this, I’ll take him.</p><p>She felt the gun in her hand then. The heavy grip, the warmth where his hand had been. Sticky from blowback. It smelled like powder and metal and the power of life.</p><p>He rose to his feet and she followed, James in one arm, the gun in her other hand, down at her side, unconsciously mimicking his posture as he carried Wyatt towards the door.</p><p>I’m naked, she found herself saying.</p><p>He looked back at her, wolfish. I know. I like you like that.</p><p>He stepped through the doorway and that seemed like a good enough answer. That seemed like all the answer she needed. He liked her like this.</p><p>She didn’t need to change at all.</p><p>She gripped the gun and hurried after him-</p><p>She was awake.</p><p>She was awake and she’d been dreaming about that place, on the border of nightmares, but she had done what he’d said. She’d looked down at those boys and she had named them, and suddenly they were on her side. They were hers. </p><p>And it had been easier that way. It had opened the door.</p><p>Now she was awake.</p><p>She wasn’t sure how long she’d been just under the surface, feeling but not connecting, striving but not understanding. But now she was awake and it was Castle curled over and around and behind her, bearing her down.</p><p>She could barely move. It was - good. It was good to - she didn’t know why she suddenly felt like crying, but God, if she could just stay like this. If she could just stay like this, she’d make it.</p><p>He was nuzzling into her. He was kissing the back of her neck. Kissing her jaw. Smudging his lips at her temple. He was breathing slowly behind her, and she felt the strength of his thighs cradling hers, felt his cock against her inside thigh.</p><p>He was tracing light designs with his fingers up and down her flanks, her side, under her breasts, around her belly button. He was touching her everywhere. He was claiming her.</p><p>Kate shifted and he went still, suddenly stopped, as if he hadn’t been trying to wake her at all.</p><p>But she was awake. </p><p>She turned onto her back and into him, and she found his cock with her fingers. Castle groaned and dropped heavily on top of her, rasping out good morning; love as if those were two separate things and not a term of endearment she couldn’t measure up to.</p><p>She stroked and gripped him and he rallied, rose up on an elbow to devour her mouth. His hand came down and guided her touch, and before she knew where exactly he was headed, he was inside of her.</p><p>She groaned and arched into him, riding his hips, mouth open against his mouth, open, so open.</p><p>He went slowly, sure strokes that pressed up against her, pressed into her, deep and wide and slick.</p><p>She was shaking, and then she was falling apart, her climax starbursts behind her eyes, and he followed fast. She was still contracting around him as he came inside her, and now she was filled up with the warmth of him, inside and out, and she fell back to the mattress and dragged his body over hers.</p><p>“Morning,” she croaked, and let her eyes fall shut, let her body fall, let everything fall.</p><p>-----</p><p>Well, he was awake, fucking hell, was he ever.</p><p>Spent and flaccid finally, after nearly all night half-hard and wanting her, but now. Yeah, he could lie here beside her, feel her hot skin pressed to his side, and he could relax. She mumbled in her sleep and rolled into him, smack against his shoulder, and he grinned lazily and stroked her back.</p><p>Her skin flinched and shivered and she moaned something in her sleep, but her body was entirely loose and flimsy. Not waking anytime soon, and he was glad of that. He’d thought her sleep was too interrupted these days, and a good, full night’s rest would do her good.</p><p>And fuck, having sex with her was addictive. He couldn’t imagine not doing this every damn night. So she needed her sleep, and he might actually be helping on that front, because after every explosive round, she dropped right off.</p><p>He was detecting a pattern to it. One orgasm was not nearly enough for her, sensitive and strung out as she was. He thought it might actually just be her, and not the last three years, not trauma doing it. He was developing a sexual profile of Kate Beckett, really without meaning to, since he did it with every asset, but this was different, of course. This was completely different.</p><p>But when she came one right after another, only then did she sack out. As if it had to take her off guard. It had to sneak up on her and then it could wreak havoc on her systems. The planned and calculated orgasms had only ramped her up, revved her engines, made her a little crazy for him. </p><p>Don’t get him wrong, he fucking loved that too.</p><p>But if was going to be really good for her, he’d make her come when her defenses were down. </p><p>“Wolf,” she mumbled softly. Her lips tickled his skin.</p><p>He huffed and crooked his arm to curl his hand at the back of her head. “Sure, honey, get you whatever you want.”</p><p>She wasn’t awake. She was deep in it. Dreamless, most likely, since her face was smooth and without furrow.</p><p>“Will you listen if I talk?” he whispered. “Will you hear me?”</p><p>Her lips seemed to move against him. A kiss in her sleep or a frown. </p><p>“Let me tell you a bedtime story. A new one. The story of us.”</p><p>She was warm and loose and so trusting against him. He was on his back and staring up at the ceiling, watching the twilight slowly luminate. </p><p>“One day, you’re going to be doing something small, something normal and routine, maybe it’s laundry, maybe it’s making lunch, maybe it’s on the phone with a client or selling a stock you’ve sold a hundred times, maybe it’s painting or reading a book or playing with our boys. One day, it will be a normal day like all the days previous that stretch back to the horizon, and you’ll realize - this is a normal day. This is my normal. And you’ll get home from work or I’ll come into the room and you’ll look at me and see the man who came into that room, drenched with killing, and you’ll say it all over again, am I going to have to do something about you? And I’ll grin and tell you probably so, because I bet I’m gonna think you’re talking about sex, and you’ll find me and touch me and laugh a little and it will be all so normal, love. You’ll say I’m glad you came for me and I’ll say I haven’t yet because I’m a wiseass, and like I said, not thinking about sex around you is kinda impossible. But I’ll know then, by the look on your face and the wild - you have this wildness about you, Kate, and no amount of home and family is gonna take that out - and I’ll say the right thing. I promise I will say the right thing. I don’t know what it is right now, still figuring that out, but by then, I will know. I hope the right thing is I love you and you’ll be at that normal place where that actually means something to you, honey, and if that’s true, then I’ll just keep saying it. Carefully, yeah, but I won’t stop. Whatever it is, it’s the right thing to say to you and you come into my arms and I feel so damn lucky that it was my boys, my violation - of anyone’s, so lucky for this connection between us that lets me know, that was exactly the right thing.”</p><p>He sighed and came to a stop, the vision shimmering and then falling apart. He didn’t have the right words to say and he didn’t know that normal was something they’d get to have. What he knew was that if he pulled an orgasm out of her when she wasn’t looking, she could fall asleep and stay there, dreamless enough for rest. What he knew was that the boys mattered to her, terribly, and she loved them in ways he couldn’t compete or fathom. What he knew was that what had been done to her was violently, awfully wrong - evil - and he would spend his life making it right.</p><p>Or at least fixing the broken places.</p><p>Jim and Johanna. Beckett. I promise. </p><p>I’ve got her. I’ve got her now.</p><p>Castle curled on his side and came in close to her, face to face now, caressing his fingers over her cheekbones, the vulnerable shadows below her eyes, the wound of her lips. He was going to bleed to death loving her. He was already.</p><p>“Sleep, honey. Long as you can. Sleep.” Because the sky was rapidly flushing with daylight and tomorrow held enough sorrows of its own.</p><p>Because the protection he could offer her involved fingers and mouths and sex, and he wanted, so very badly, for it to be the protection of her heart.</p><p>-----</p><p>“It’s probably time to get up, isn’t it?” she murmured, kissing his chin. He was smiling, she could feel it, and his fingers skimmed the knobs of her spine. “But you’re not very encouraging, Castle.”</p><p>“Au contraire, I’m very encouraging. Encouraging you to stay in bed. Don’t get up yet.”</p><p>She huffed, wriggling closer to his body in the bed. She had to admit she wasn’t very encouraged. She just wanted to touch him like this, touch him all the time. He touched her too, that was the problem, he kept touching and stroking and fiddling with parts of her. Fiddling with her earlobe was one thing, but circling her navel was another, and still another - dipping his fingers between the lips of her sex.</p><p>“You could just,” she mumbled, shifting her hips, “just touch me a little.”</p><p>“You said you felt chafed-”</p><p>“I should never have said it,” she sighed. “Besides. I want you to touch me and it’s already done, right? Already chafed down there, so-”</p><p>“Kate,” he chided.</p><p>“Please?”</p><p>“Shit.”</p><p>“Please just a little?” she whined, knowing he couldn’t actually say no to her. She flirted with the rise of his hip bone, as if she might touch his ass or his cock, either one.</p><p>“You’re insatiable, baby.” But his fingers stroked along her inside thigh, touched her sex so that she jumped. Into him. “So insatiable.”</p><p>“You made me,” she hummed, purring into the feel of him between her legs. “If I’m in-oh fuck-insatiable, if I want you so much, it’s just because you’re so good at making me come.”</p><p>He chuckled, but his fingers stroked her. His burning fingers, the raw feeling between her legs. “One for the road, sweetheart.”</p><p>“Oh, yes,” she moaned, opening her mouth at his neck. “What about - about you?”</p><p>“I’ll take mine in the shower.”</p><p>“Take me in the shower,” she amended, nearly thoughtless with the dizzying sensation of his fingers pushing inside her. “Oh, God, there. That’s - perfect. You’re perfect.”</p><p>“Hush, baby, just feel.”</p><p>“I want you inside me, all the time, all-”</p><p>“I know, love,” he hummed, shifting now to bear her down. She moaned and rose up into the slow thrust of his fingers, riding his hand as she spiraled out of control.</p><p>Her orgasm rushed over her in a wave, drowning her in the wonderful sensations, bliss and peace and fluttering butterflies in her belly.</p><p>He kissed her softly and again, again, kissed her until she twined her arms around his neck and he could lift her from the bed. </p><p>He carried her into the bathroom, and she knew she could definitely have him there too. She just had to be persuasive.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle grunted as he sheathed himself inside her, hot, wet, dark. She growled and pitched her hips into him, taking him deeper. He flexed his jaw to control his instinct to thrust, wildly, to just rut inside her, because he couldn’t. Couldn’t. Not right now.</p><p>That would come later. Could come later. She would like that.</p><p>The shower beat down hard on his back, her hair in wet strands against his neck, her own cheeks, one of his hands braced against the tile wall, the other gripping her bruised hip to hold her up.</p><p>She had finger-shaped bruises all over her thighs, she had dark love bites across her neck and breasts. He felt like a fucking animal when looked at those marks, but in a deeply possessive and terribly good way. He had done that to her, he had marked her, she had asked him to.</p><p>She wanted it.</p><p>He wanted to claim her.</p><p>He couldn’t find it in himself to regret it. She barely seemed to care. But as he struggled to keep from rocking too much inside her, struggled to keep from fucking her hard and making it worse, he burned those marks into his brain, a reminder for all time that what he did, what they did, might not always look pretty.</p><p>It might not always be the rest of the world’s normal. But fuck, it worked so well for them.</p><p>He was not ashamed.</p><p>She was writhing against him, moaning into his ear, go go go.</p><p>He thrust once, giving in to it, and she trembled, scrabbling at his back, clutching his shoulders even as she tightened her legs around his hips. He rocked against her, the base of his cock putting pressure on her clit, and she gasped.</p><p>Water dripped from his nose to her lips. She licked them and hummed, vibrating with it, working her hips against him. He chased that water drop, kissing her with a force that made her moan, his tongue stroking.</p><p>Her hips didn’t exactly go still, but the force of her concentration was on their kiss. He slipped his fingers between them and made a tight circle around his cock, sliding through her sex and scraping her clit.</p><p>She screamed as she came, hips stuttering and body writhing, and Castle let himself release, his orgasm washing pure and clean through him, draining.</p><p>He hadn’t realized just how much he’d needed that too.</p><p>-----</p><p>She tried not to tease him, sluicing him with soap and water as the shower ran hot between them. He wanted to wash her hair, and it was strangely electrifying, his fingers against her scalp and the massage at her temples, the back of her skull. She nearly fell over, leaning into him, and he laughed at her a little, but for some reason it was sweet, it felt blushingly good to hear him laugh as his hands cradled her.</p><p>Was it so bad to be this mushy and malleable around him? After three years starving, entirely hard and walled off out of complete necessity (and even then, those boys had slipped through like poison darts, penetrating the heart of her), maybe being this ridiculously delirious around Castle was a good thing.</p><p>It meant she still could be. It meant Black hadn't taken everything of her private self. It meant she had survived him, and he hadn't survived her.</p><p>She was very pleased by that.</p><p>"What're you smiling about?" he hummed in her ear. Barely distinguishable over the thunder of the shower, and then before she had a chance to answer, the water was cut off and they stood dripping and steamed on the tiles, bodies close.</p><p>"Smiling about you," she said. "Mostly."</p><p>He barked a laugh, his fingers tightening around her wrist, and she was so liquid this morning, so very smooth and easy, that it didn't even blip on her radar. Other than to recognize the bruise already there and the possession of his touch that she didn't even mind.</p><p>"Mostly me," he said, sounding affronted. "Why not all me? I think I showed you a pretty damn good time."</p><p>"I thought I was the one showing you a good time."</p><p>He chuckled and nudged her over the lip of the massive shower, his fingers brushing in erotic little touches all along her ass, hip, sides. He couldn't stop touching her. She didn't mind at all; she was probably touching just as much, and while he had her wrist to grab a hold of, she had his cock. Fair was fair.</p><p>"You definitely did," he said, dragging a towel from the bar and rubbing it through his hair. She watched him a moment, somehow having expected him to hand her the towel first, but he hadn't, and she wondered why she thought that was so amusing.</p><p>"I definitely what?" She studied the flex of his arms, the sudden reappearance of his grinning face. Hair spiked up now.</p><p>"You showed me a good time," he said goofily. And then he kissed her, a wet smack of lips and the brief foray of his tongue, like he was trying to be good but it got the better of him.</p><p>"Mm, good," she murmured, wet, naked, but definitely warm. Not a bit cold.</p><p>"Oh, shit, here," he said, and wrapped her up in his damp towel, drawing the ends closed around her. Another kiss, this time a glancing one against her forehead, and then he was tugging her with him towards the warming rack where the fluffy, heated ones were hanging. "Switch these out."</p><p>He whisked one off and dropped the towel around her, a rush of cooler air a moment before he was wrapping her in the heated towel. She wriggled down into it, sniffed the edge for that scent of laundry and softener.</p><p>"Thanks," she murmured. "Warm."</p><p>"Your cheeks are pink," he said, studying her. Eyes roving over her just as hers had done to him. "And your hair is all..."</p><p>"Crazy," she muttered, rolling her eyes.</p><p>He shrugged. "No. Just - it gets wavy and curls up a little. I like it."</p><p>I like you like that. Flashes from a dream she didn't quite remember now. "Well, I should get a blow dryer, probably. Some day."</p><p>"We could go-"</p><p>She pressed her fingers to his lips. "Some day. Not right now. I'm - I like it like this too, and you do, and so... not right now."</p><p>His lips flirted with her fingers, a smile he tried to hide. She had made him happy. Pleased with himself.</p><p>"It's not for you," she muttered. "It's for me."</p><p>"Of course," he said, eyes cast down. Still flirting with that smile. Made her belly flare up, little bursts. Her legs were shaky and that rawness was still there, a feeling like she had to move carefully, gingerly. </p><p>"You're kinda insufferable when you're sated," she muttered, nudging to get him to move. </p><p>He laughed, flashing her a joyful smile as he headed out of the bathroom. "You're right. Sated. That's the perfect for word for how I feel. You?"</p><p>"Mm, you bet," she husked, flicking her fingers at his ass. He shivered and she liked that too. She really just liked everything, all the ways they could touch and feel and mess with each other, the way she had him at her mercy, just plain had him. She didn't even mind having him, though sometimes when his heart was in his eyes and breaking in his voice, she had that urgent instinct to hide. To run.</p><p>To break something.</p><p>Usually she broke him; she could, at least, do that. Break him and herself and that intensity was channeled into the way their bodies broke each other.</p><p>She could do that.</p><p>"Come on," he said, turning back to her. "Clothes, Beckett. And then we probably ought to get the boys. I think I heard them up a few hours ago."</p><p>She wanted that too, which was strange and new. She wanted to mount those stairs and pick up her boys and feed them breakfast and watch them learn words and the world. </p><p>But first.</p><p>Kate tiptoed up behind him and wrapped her arms around his torso, her towel dropping so that it was skin to skin, heat to heat, her body molded to his. He went utterly still, and then his hands came to settle over hers, and she felt his heart thudding, felt the curve of his ass perfectly at the cradle of her pelvis.</p><p>"One more for the road?" she husked, needing it again. A fire flaming up.</p><p>-----</p><p>He really ought to not be taking her against the wall, really ought to be better, but it took a supreme effort of will power to pull his hips back from hers and bury his mouth in her neck. Shaking. Edge of control. "How - do you want me?" he croaked.</p><p>Her teeth nipped him. "I liked that thing in your lap," she whispered at his ear. "But I - want to see your face when you come."</p><p>"Oh, fuck, yes," he groaned. He gripped her thighs and hoisted her up the wall; she caught on and wrapped her legs around his waist. He moved them immediately for the bed, grateful for locks on the doors he'd flipped last night, grateful for the strength to get her to the bed in the first place. Grateful for I want to see your face.</p><p>She rubbed against him. She rocked her hips and kissed him, neck and throat and jawline, rough passes of her lips and teeth. He wished to hell his bruises wouldn't fade, wished desperately the ways she was marking him and had marked him would last.</p><p>He propped his back against the headboard, her body still urgent against him, and when he moved to grip her hips, to angle her - she was already there, going up on her knees, going up on her knees, oh fuck, oh fuck, her body rippling and moving over him, her hand on his cock. Her hand on him, working him, as if he needed to be worked up for her, any harder and he was going to come, and she was rocking her hips into the air and teasing herself with him, teasing them both mercilessly, and the sounds she made, those noises, exquisite, wonderful, gut-clenching moans-</p><p>"Oh, God," she whispered, sinking down on him. A few inches, her wet heat clutching at him and expelling him at the same time, her sex so swollen there was almost no room for him. "You're huge. You feel - so good."</p><p>He grit his teeth and tried not to control things, tried so damn hard not to grab her hips and yank her down, seat himself all the way inside her. She rose up on her knees again, fingers still circling him, and then sank back down. He groaned and tilted his head back against the headboard, breathing hard, sweat breaking out. She lifted up and his cock withdrew completely; he growled some foreign command, losing all sense of his language, as she teased, teased, stroking herself with the head of him.</p><p>"Kate."</p><p>"Little endurance, Castle," she breathed against his chin. Her body leaned in, plastering her breasts to his sweat-drenched chest, her nipples hard points. She was rubbing herself against him, smiling at his need, chuckling at his whimpers. "Endurance goes a long way. Shall we see how long you can hold out?"</p><p>"No," he growled, grabbing her by the knees and yanking her legs apart. She huffed and tumbled down, and he reached between them, pressed his thumb inside her to guide his cock. She stiffened and moaned, neck arching, and he thrust as deep as he could.</p><p>"Rick."</p><p>He'd tease her about endurance if he had - at all - anything left to spare. But as it was, he was barely holding himself together, and he drove his hips up as she writhed on top of him, trying to get him deeper.</p><p>"Rock your hips," he snapped. "Rock-"</p><p>She finally did, remembering last night or fucking good instinct, and they both cried out when he went home. Kate stilled over him, an arm wrapped around his neck, her breath fast at his cheek. He could smell her, smell them, the sex of last night and the thick dew of this morning, and she was trembling.</p><p>He should've let her tease. He shouldn't have forced things, should've gone with her lead. "I love you," he croaked. "I love you, and I can't stop - can't stop wanting you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but I can't-"</p><p>She kissed him fiercely, a clash of her teeth, her tongue invading his mouth and stopping his words. She was drowning him in sensation, feeling, an emotional cascade straight into his soul, pouring out into him. And just like that time in the car, it was cresting without his control, swamping him with the rage of lust and love and desperation, and he orgasmed without warning, his hoarse cries muffled in her mouth as she swallowed his sounds.</p><p>She was rocking over him still, rocking her hips and panting into his groans, her arm tight around his neck. "Touch me," she moaned. "Touch me, Castle. I need you."</p><p>He roused and found that hot, slick place where they joined, the erotic and terrible feeling of himself disappearing into her sex-mouth, and he rubbed hard against the folds of her sex, avoiding her overstimulated clit on instinct.</p><p>She stiffened, wide-eyed, gasping, and then she came in an orgasm so intense that it was all he could do to hang on to her, hold her down against him in her wild writhing.</p><p>-----</p><p>“One last kiss,” he murmured, drawing her back to him by her belt loops.</p><p>She stumbled, making a production out of it just to see the wolfish hunger on his face be replaced by that sweet adoration. His hand came up to catch the back of her head and his kiss was both those things - hungry and sweet. She wanted it to last forever.</p><p>But of course it didn’t. Couldn’t. Only when she dropped back flat-footed, his thumb traced her ear and he looked at her like a revelation from the heavens.</p><p>“Now you can go,” he husked.</p><p>She blinked, felt her lips curl in a grin. “Imperious much?”</p><p>“My name is Castle,” he grinned, and stole a little peck on her lips. “Go get my boys, I’ll start breakfast.”</p><p>“My boys,” she said back, releasing him. (When had she held on to him? when had she become just as unable to let go as he had?)</p><p>“Semantics,” he called, even as she headed for the stairs.</p><p>“You don’t always get to have the last word,” she snorted, mounting the steps.</p><p>“Neither do you.”</p><p>She found herself without words for a smart retort, so she stuck her tongue out at him and ran up the stairs. She could hear him chuckling at her, pleased with himself, and she popped open the baby gate and came inside the boys’ room.</p><p>The morning sun was yellow and light, not yet oppressive, and the boys were still in their bed, though they were both awake and talking to each other. Wyatt scrambled up when he saw her, but James cried out for her.</p><p>“Mommy!”</p><p>She laughed, a little breathless at the enthusiasm, and she came to them at the open side of the toddler bed, holding her arms out. “Hey, babies. You’re both awake. Come here.”</p><p>James came first, scrambling over Wyatt and into her arms, but Wyatt wasn’t far behind, clutching his bunny and launching himself at her. She oofed and rocked back, one arm for each of them, cupping the backs of their heads and hugging them close.</p><p>“Morning, sweetheart. Hey, baby. Give me kisses.” She kissed each one on the mouth, loud and smacking, and she actually made James giggle. He ducked his head and squirmed into her, but Wyatt beamed like he’d thought of kissing himself.</p><p>“Mommy, me!”</p><p>“Yeah, I kissed you, didn’t I?”</p><p>“Mommy, me!”</p><p>“Kiss. Can you say kiss? Say kiss, Wyatt.”</p><p>“Tiss, Wy!”</p><p>She laughed hard, sinking back on her butt with the boys in her arms. “Oh, baby. Well, you asked for it, didn’t you?” She kissed him again, smacking his cheek this time and gobbling his neck. He squealed loud enough to make her and James both cringe, but there was such giggly happiness in it that she kissed him again.</p><p>“Mommy,” James insisted, worming his way between her and Wyatt. “Mommy.” He frowned, seemed to struggle with getting his mouth and tongue in the right places, and then he growled in frustration.</p><p>“Kiss,” she repeated quietly, leaning in and touching her lips to his. His face dawned with a kind of awed understanding.</p><p>“Tiss, Mommy.” He smiled shyly and proffered his face, kissed the corner of her mouth. She beamed back at him and he ducked his head, squirming in delight in her lap.</p><p>“Very good, baby. How smart you are. You both are.” </p><p>Kate squeezed him a little tighter, realized that his poor diaper was soaked. But Wyatt was wriggling for her attention now too, and she had to kiss him as well and brush the hair back from his forehead to do it again.</p><p>“Okay, all right. You guys need to be changed, huh? I see now why Daddy left it all up to me.” She wrinkled her nose at them and pushed them off her lap, one at a time, and took Wyatt first, laying him down on the floor. “Stay right here, Wy. Let me find a diaper and clean clothes. James, stick around, honey; you’re next.”</p><p>James plopped down right before her, entirely obedient, and she leaned over and kissed the top of his head for it even as she got up. She rooted around in the boys’ bag, confused by how empty it was until she realized-</p><p>Castle had set up a little bureau. It must have been some kind of storage thing for a garage because it was composed of black plastic with clear lucite drawers. She could see clothes and supplies all neatly arranged through the clear fronts, and she opened the top drawer and found the diaper stuff.</p><p>“I guess Daddy did this,” she murmured, her chest tightening as she withdrew two diapers, the changing pad they’d bought at the pharmacy down the street. “He’s a smart man. And your clothes are in here too.” Kate tugged open the bottom drawer and retrieved two of the plain white onesies, but she realized they were the same uniforms they’d been wearing at the facility.</p><p>No, no more of that. She chose a light blue cotton one for James, and for Wyatt she went with the navy, tugging them free of the drawer.</p><p>She brought everything back to Wyatt and laid it out, and only then did she notice that the onesies had little designs on their chests. The navy blue had a picture of a round-cheeked eager puppy getting nuzzled by the mama dog, while the pale blue simply said mommy is the boss.</p><p>Kate choked on something that was both laughter and a sob, pressing her hand over her eyes and sinking back to her heels. She didn’t know when he’d picked those out, when he’d sneaked them by her, but oh, God, there was something about having adorable, cute, perfect little clothes for them.</p><p>Really, they had outgrown onesies. Fourteen months old was for shorts and t-shirts, and she’d only been using the onesies out of habit. Because she hadn’t seen them in anything else, ever. Because they must have been like pajamas, and she’d been putting the boys in them because it was all she knew.</p><p>And after breakfast, they’d be messy and need a bath or at least a change of clothes and she’d only been thinking these would be easy, and God, life was entirely too complicated if onesies were sending her over the edge.</p><p>Kate scraped her hand down her face and found both boys watching her. Happy enough, content enough, waiting her out.</p><p>She cleared her throat and nodded. “Right. Well. Mommy’s the boss, but she’s also a little weepy right this second. So - forgive me, guys, and we’ll pretend this never happened.”</p><p>“Mommy, me.”</p><p>She laughed shakily and reached for Wyatt’s feet, unbuttoning the legs of his pajamas so she could change him. “You’re right. Focus on you. Daddy is making us breakfast and we don’t want him to get worried about us.”</p><p>She swallowed hard and cleared her throat again, pushing herself past the instinct to cry.</p><p>She’d just been having sex with the amazing man who had found little adorable clothes for their sons and put everything away neatly so that it would make her life easier. She had just kissed him and teased him until he’d growled and forced her down on him, and hadn’t that been so amazing and intense and wild?</p><p>What did she need for tears? She had so much.</p><p>She just had so very much.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle glanced up from the omelette he was attempting and saw Kate leading the boys by the hand into the kitchen. He knew he was smiling like a loon - Colin had already rolled his eyes and elbowed him in the solar plexus twice - but he couldn’t help it.</p><p>He was seriously in love with her. With them. With having a life with her and their boys and somehow just making it. Making it.</p><p>“Say, good morning, daddy,” she murmured, nudging the boys forward.</p><p>“Daddy!” Wyatt shortcutted, running straight for him and throwing himself into Castle’s shins. </p><p>Castle chuckled, feeling out of breath with it, and leaned over Wyatt, hauled him into his arms. “Morning, my man. You have a good night?”</p><p>“Not as good as we did,” Kate piped up.</p><p>He shot her a swift look but Colin cursed from the table and shoved his chair back, standing abruptly. “Fucking hell. You guys are disgusting.”</p><p>Kate’s cheeks flushed bright red, and Castle turned a spearing look to his brother. “Fuck off, Colin.”</p><p>“There’s been enough fucking,” he said nastily. But the moment he drew even with the kitchen, he must have seen Kate’s face, the absolute panic crawling behind her eyes, panic frozen over by everything she was and had been through - because Colin huffed and put his hands on his hips. “You guys are loud, you know. And the rooms are filled with copper, so thank fuck I don’t have to feel it too.” Colin leaned over and grabbed James, pulled him into his arms. “You’re lucky too, kid. You better thank your smart uncle for figuring out that copper keeps us all nicely self-contained.”</p><p>Kate’s blush went deeper, swamping her whole face, but the frozen fear had shattered, gone that fast. She turned to Colin and smirked. “You’re just jealous. You need to get laid, Colin.”</p><p>Castle saw the nasty retort on the tip of his brother’s tongue you offering but thank fuck Colin didn’t say it. He only lifted an eyebrow and carried James to the table.</p><p>But the boy growled and leaned out, not for Kate, but for Castle. He stepped up, stunned, and took the other boy into his arms with Wyatt, his heart flipping as James hugged him around the neck.</p><p>“Daddy,” murmured quietly.</p><p>“Yeah,” he breathed, burying his face between the boys. His own brother took over at the omelette, and Castle felt Kate tugging on him, dragging him towards the table. </p><p>“Come on, Rick, don’t lose it,” she said softly. “James practiced his ‘good morning’ all the way down the stairs, but I guess he lost his nerve.”</p><p>He picked up his head and cleared his throat, carried the boys to their spots at the table. Kate seemed to understand that he needed a moment, because she took over with Wyatt, giving him his cup of juice and the pancakes Castle had already made.</p><p>Castle squatted down beside his son, cupped the back of James’s neck. “You don’t need to gather your courage to talk to me,” he said quietly. He leaned in and kissed James’s cheek, letting himself feel how much it meant to him to have James here, to have the boy hug his neck this morning, how enough that was. “You do whatever it is you can or want to do, my man. You’re here. That’s all I want. Okay?”</p><p>He kissed James again, lingering at the boy’s forehead, and when he pulled back, James had a shy little smile for him.</p><p>“Tiss, Daddy.”</p><p>Castle laughed, breath catching, and lifted his eyes to Kate. She was smiling like she knew, so he just shook his head and kissed James one more time, just for saying the word. “Yeah, kid. Kisses. All I need from you. Now, look, here’s breakfast. Pancakes and those sausages you guys like. Eat up. Might let you try some omelette if you want.”</p><p>When he rose to stand again, Kate was hesitating at the head of the table, as if waiting for him. Colin was still at the stove, flipping his omelette, so Castle reached out for her, dragging her into his side.</p><p>“I’m okay,” he promised. “Kinda overwhelmed by all of - everything. Last night and today. Just - grateful. Really damn grateful.”</p><p>She nodded against him, arm tightening. “Know what you mean. Been a long time.”</p><p>Oh, God. </p><p>To keep from absolutely breaking down at that thought, Castle wrapped his other arm around her and hugged her fiercely, burying his face in her hair.</p><p>Been a long time for him too, but at least he’d been free to choose.</p><p>-----</p><p>They relocated to the garden and back patio when it became clear that the boys wouldn't last much longer inside. Yesterday's treat at the lakeshore had apparently been the catalyst, and now the boys wanted out. </p><p>Wyatt tried to take his bunny outside with him, and Kate had to head it off, take the toy from him. Wyatt whined up at her, throwing his head back and fisting the hem of her t-shirt, actually producing melodramatic tears. She caressed his face and marveled at the experience of his displeasure, his temper tantrum, and then she told him no.</p><p>She didn't have much experience with little kids; she'd never really baby-sat in the neighborhood, nor had she wanted to. But she thought his sudden and immediate cessation was a sign of trauma, and not a sign of obedience.</p><p>Kate sighed and bent over, lifted Wyatt into her arms. James had already gone through the open French doors, while Castle and Colin carried a table outside with their planning efforts. She waited until they'd passed, and then she carried a still-mournful Wyatt out with her.</p><p>He perked up immediately, wriggled to be let down. She set him on his feet and he dashed for his brother, the two of them tumbling to the grass inside the garden. James shrugged off his brother but handed him a broken-stemmed geranium, and Wyatt took it, clasping it to his chest as if so pleased.</p><p>Kate turned to the guys, watched them setting up the table. They had plans to make today, and they'd go after Eastman as soon as tomorrow, most likely. Colin still didn't like her, but he liked her plan, and Castle's objections were being overridden one by one.</p><p>The sun was warm on her bare arms. Her body was beginning to relax a little, despite herself. Breakfast had been sweet and - familial - even with Colin, like he'd been trying to be on his best behavior. The boys had been loud and squabbling over food, as always, and in the middle of that chaos, there'd been Castle. </p><p>Grazing her thigh, arm around her shoulders, side by side, a glance of his eyes, the heat of his smile, and her, doing it back like she couldn't help it.  Doing it back even though she felt like she was setting them both up for failure.</p><p>Still, outside in the sun, some of that warmth and fluttery feeling came rising up inside her again. Floating to the surface. It was hard to spell doom when the letters were just plain missing beneath the heat of the sun and the boys playing like normal boys and Castle setting up his laptop and talking battle plans and tactical strategy.</p><p>She didn't belong to any of these worlds, but the planning - that at least felt right.</p><p>She sat down at the table, tucking her legs beneath the stone bench, and she dragged the pile of reports towards her. Colin sat down at her left and Castle at her right and just as she was squinting down at the architectural drawings of Eastman's alleged home and property, Castle handed over her sunglasses.</p><p>Nudge of her elbow and there they were, those black Ray-Bans with the superstar-shaped dark lenses.</p><p>Kate sucked in a quick breath, but she took them, unfolding the arms and sliding them onto her face. Her eyes relaxed and her shoulders did too, and Castle stroked his fingers at the nape of her neck, came in close.</p><p>His voice was soft and strong at her ear. "Whatever he thinks of you, whatever you're picking up from him, Kate, honey, please don't let it get to you. He's like this, it has to play out, and then he'll find his balance and it'll be okay again."</p><p>She swallowed and tried to keep her eyes from Colin, turned instead to look at Castle. She couldn't say, I'm afraid, because she wasn't, not of him. It just felt a lot like it for some reason. Felt a lot like standing at the edge of the dark black cliff and trying to close her eyes to the void, knowing even as she did that falling was inevitable.</p><p>"Kate?"</p><p>"Yeah," she nodded.</p><p>"We're a team. All three of us on this. You hear me? I know I'm not a huge fan of this idea, but it doesn't mean I won't be there for you."</p><p>She shifted her head a little - just enough - and touched her lips to the corner of his mouth. "Thank you. I - I do know that."</p><p>"And in the same vein, Colin will have your back just as I will. And you've got ours. That's what a squad does."</p><p>She nodded, confidence beginning to solidify once more. "And you won't hurt Eastman. Mark."</p><p>He sighed, but he brushed his lips over her forehead and sat back. "I won't hurt him, Kate. I promised you."</p><p>She dropped her hand to his knee, palm up, and wriggled her fingers, wanting that connection more than she liked to admit. Yet still wanting even as she knew it wasn't healthy to want so much. Not in this world, not when the boys were already such a black hole of want. </p><p>Castle glanced down at her seeking hand. A pause where she didn't even dare breathe, and then he touched his fingertips to the webbing between her own, stroking. Her heart galloped, her throat dry, and then he interlaced their hands.</p><p>Already she needed him too much and she didn't have any way of stopping it.</p><p>-----</p><p>"I still think approaching her is the best shot we have," Kate said stubbornly.</p><p>Castle rubbed the furrow between his brows and tried to keep in mind that he really actually loved her stubbornness, that her obstinance had kept her alive for three years. And it had made for a lot of fun last night and this morning. So. Fuck it all. He loved her mulish little heart.</p><p>It was just damn frustrating to hear her say the same things over and over and not fucking listen to him when he tried to explain. "I know. And once again, I'm not saying that we won't approach her. I'm saying that if she doesn't even exist, we need a back-up."</p><p>"Well, I don't have a back-up," she finally huffed. She sat up straight, her body away from his, crossing her arms. "There's nothing else. You keep saying we can't approach him head on, and I keep telling you that if she's not viable, he is. I know him, Castle. I know him."</p><p>"I'm not sending you out to him alone."</p><p>"Then we're going without a back-up plan," she hissed.</p><p>His nostrils flared but he only kept his gaze steady on her, not intending to fall for her instinctive pushback bullshit. She liked to shove him right over his lines, but he had a feeling that had been survival-based as well.</p><p>"We will not go without a back-up plan," he said quietly. "Colin. Tell her."</p><p>Colin sighed, and Castle knew he shouldn't be dragging his brother into arguments between himself and Kate, but this was an issue for the whole crew, not just the two of them.</p><p>Colin pushed away the laptop and turned to Kate. "He's right. We always have a back-up, and we always have an escape hatch. We don't do this without those two things. We're crew, Beckett. Used to be me and him, but now there's you. And fuck it all, the boys are going on this one too, so maybe you ought to want a back-up."</p><p>"I know what my back-up is," she muttered.</p><p>Going out to meet Eastman alone, corner him. Hell, no. Castle was not-</p><p>"Yeah, I know you think that," Colin said suddenly. His voice was deadly quiet. "But I'm not sure you understand what I mean when I say we're crew. We are crew. What you do affects me, affects him, what I do, same for you. Ride or Die, Beckett. That's what this is. Ride or Die."</p><p>She blinked, a half second's total frozen prey (it made Castle sick; he wondered if that was the look she'd given Black, that blank nothing and deep below the surface, the writhing fear she still attempted to master). And then her head swiveled to him, as if in confirmation. "Ride or die?"</p><p>Castle nodded briskly. "Ride it out. Or die trying."</p><p>Her mouth closed, eyes snapped back, dark flames in the narrow set of her face. "That - means anything. Anything that happens."</p><p>"It means we have a damn good plan, and we always back the play."</p><p>Colin cleared his throat. "Hold it down, and keep it tight."</p><p>Kate's gaze jerked to Colin and then back to Castle. "I don't know what that means. What does that mean?"</p><p>"It means you hold the line - shit, we have so many fucking phrases. They're all military and prison jargon, this is so fucking-"</p><p>"Don't you dare say stupid," Colin snarled.</p><p>Castle glanced at his brother, realized Colin had to be feeling pretty damn left out. Left out of what had once been solely a two man crew. They'd only had each other. He was all Colin had. But now he had Kate; he just had to accept it, embrace it. They both had Kate. They were crew.</p><p>"Not stupid, no. It's just that coming from her perspective, nothing gets explained when we keep using these hoo-rah Marine slap-ass shit."</p><p>"There are reasons for it," Colin insisted. "And it works."</p><p>He nodded. "It works. It does. But let's be clear for her sake-"</p><p>"I'm sitting right here."</p><p>Castle's lips turned up and he snaked his hand to her knee, squeezing a little. "You are. Sorry. What we mean when we say ride or die is that we're crew. We hold each other together, and we have each other's backs when shit gets real. Fuck, that's still a bunch of fucking phrases. Fuck me."</p><p>She giggled.</p><p>He glanced at her and Kate slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes widening. "Uh-huh."</p><p>"Look, we hold it down, we keep it tight," Colin muttered. "It means if we draw up battle plans, then no matter what the fuck happens to you out in the field, you fucking hold your position, you do your job, you complete your mission - because one of us is depending on you to do your part of the plan. So if you go off half-cocked after Eastman on your own simply because you have this idea that you're fucking better or smarter or faster than us, you fuck us all."</p><p>Kate went still, no longer laughing. Castle gritted his teeth, wishing sometimes he could seriously do his brother damage, but Kate was withdrawing her hand from his and holding it flat on the table, palm up. She nodded to Castle and then looked at Colin. "Ride or die."</p><p>Colin clearly hadn't been expecting that. But he laid his hand over hers and she shook it. Colin gripped her hand and then curled his into a fist, his face relaxing into that smarmy smile of his. "Like this, baby Beckett." She curled her fist in response and they bumped, and then Castle obligingly fist bumped them too.</p><p>"Ride or die," he said in return.</p><p>Colin nodded. "Ride or die."</p><p>Castle hoped like hell that Beckett meant it, because he was going to act like she was going to stay. With him. For life.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’d been hashing out the last of their plan when Wyatt fell to the concrete patio and busted his lip. The boy immediately began to sob, rocking back on his bottom and holding up his skinned hands. The tears mixed with the blood from his lip, and Castle looked to Kate.</p><p>She was shaking. She stood abruptly and backed up, tripping over the leg of the bench, spinning wildly out of his grip as he tried to catch her fall.</p><p>“I need a break,” she croaked. And then she disappeared through the garden gate to the forest beyond.</p><p>Castle got to his feet but he had to check his first instinct when Wyatt began to wail, and he turned instead to comfort his son. He squatted down before Wyatt, lightly circled the boy’s wrists with his fingers, drawing his hands out. “Hey, there, son. You’re okay. Stings a little, doesn’t it? Not used to such hard ground.”</p><p>James was hovering close, as if he had to be sure Castle was going to do right by Wyatt, but neither boy seemed to notice or find it odd that Kate wasn’t here, wasn’t the one to comfort.</p><p>Wyatt’s tears dropped to the flagstone patio, his lip trembling, his breath ragged, trying to actually fight it, but completely unable.</p><p>Castle carefully scooped him up, carried the boy close to his chest, a hand at the back of Wyatt’s head, cradling  him. “Hey, buddy, let’s go inside and clean you up.” He turned at the French doors, gestured with his chin towards James. “Col, you mind?”</p><p>“Actually, Castle, you might want to take him in with you.”</p><p>Castle startled, but he took a closer look at James, heeding his brother’s unsubtle nudge. James was very carefully holding himself still, but his eyes were intent on Wyatt, on Castle, and he had the feeling there was a lot of history here.</p><p>“James,” he said quietly, but he made his voice a command. “Come with me.”</p><p> For an instant, James wavered. Castle could see his rigid body and how he fought that indoctrinated urge to obey. But in the end, it was too much for him, and he came forward, his movement much more like a confident toddler than a baby only fourteen months old.</p><p>Castle forgot that sometimes - the dearth of knowledge and experience that separated the boys’ real age from their perceived age. They were talking and learning so fast, they moved so easily, but they were babies, and they’d been so contained, shaped, made into the image of one man’s terrible design.</p><p>Castle squatted down and wrapped his free arm around James, hefted up both boys. “It’s okay. I promise it’s okay. It’s just a fall, a little scrape and busted lip. Those will heal fast, soon, in fact, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a little comforting. Hey, guys. Remember? Kisses.” He touched his lips softly to Wyatt’s temple and then to James’s. “Kisses, boys.”</p><p>“Tiss, Daddy, tiss,” Wyatt whimpered, his lip sticking out now.</p><p>Castle went inside with the boys, intending to make an ice pack and clean Wyatt’s hands off in the sink. He turned to ask Colin to go after Kate, but his brother was following him inside.</p><p>“Castle?” he said. His voice was hard as the rock patio Wyatt had just busted out against. “I need to tell you something.”</p><p>Castle stared at his brother. It came to him suddenly that he’d barely spared his brother a second look last night, but there’d been something off since his solitary excursion yesterday. </p><p>“Colin. What did you do?”</p><p>-----</p><p>He tried to listen, tried to be rational and calm as his brother explained, even though it took everything in him not to punch Colin in the face and wrestle him down to the floor and beat it into him that they were a fucking crew, not a one-man operation.</p><p>And Colin had been the one deriding Beckett about it.</p><p>But both boys were paying very strict attention to Castle and all he was doing, as if they expected one kind of behavior and were waiting for the other shoe to drop. So Castle couldn’t beat his brother for his stupidity, he could only listen.</p><p>“There was nothing there,” Colin said. “It had been cleared out - nearly a week ago.”</p><p>Castle gently picked debris from Wyatt’s little palm, breathing through his teeth.</p><p>“The place was like a ghost town. Everything left just as it had been, as if they’d all be coming back to work on Monday. But as I started through the labs, the key things were missing. Records had been purged, thoroughly, even though whoever did it had closed each file cabinet neatly behind him, had even left the computers where they were, just totally ruined.”</p><p>“Ruined,” Castle said, echoing the one word he could get out of his mouth without yelling.</p><p>“Ran a magnet over the CPU, I’m assuming. Wouldn’t even turn on. Probably a power drill through the disc drive.”</p><p>“Any discs?” Castle asked, finally working free a piece of bark that had kept falling apart under Castle’s tweezers. Wyatt sat perfectly still on the edge of the kitchen counter, James in a bar stool at his side, his cheek against the granite, watching, drooping. Tired for some reason.</p><p>Was it Kate?</p><p>“No discs either. Every computer had a case right beside the drive, but they were all empty. And then I went into the processing area, where they usually make the stuff, and the centrifuges were all there, but not a trace, not an ounce of the elixir.”</p><p>“That was a dangerous thing to do on your own,” Castle growled. Wyatt flinched and Castle took another breath, brushing his fingers along the boy’s shin, trying to be soothing.</p><p>“I found a likely location. I checked it out.”</p><p>“And went inside. Alone.”</p><p>“It was deserted.”</p><p>“You couldn’t have known that.”</p><p>“You forget what I can do?”</p><p>Castle swallowed the immediate response, removed a splinter from Wyatt’s other palm. “No. But it was still a risk. Could have been natural copper in the hills, could have been enough copper pipes to mask a security guy in the basement.”</p><p>“It was empty.”</p><p>Castle teased the last piece of dirt from his son’s hand, and then he tossed the tweezers onto the counter, pitching them a little harder than he’d meant to and making both boys jump.</p><p>“It was empty,” Colin said again. “Do you know what that means?”</p><p>“It means you got lucky,” Castle replied, turning on the spot with the gauze in his hands. “It means I would’ve waited a couple days, thinking you’d gone off as usual, and then when the connection faded, when I finally fucking realized it wasn’t just me overloading on her, I’d have gone looking for you. Too late. And probably with them in tow, the way she’s going on about this.”</p><p>“No,” Colin said slowly, taking the package out of his hands and ripping it open. Gauze popped free and rained over the counter, and Wyatt laughed while James lifted his head, drew one to himself for inspection. </p><p>Colin laughed back and flicked a piece towards James, then handed the half-empty package back to Castle. </p><p>“No, big brother, it means they know something bad happened, they know Black is dead, and they’re burning the evidence. It’s flight mode, last days stuff. Which means it’s going to be near impossible to get that elixir she needs.”</p><p>Castle gritted his teeth and laid a square of gauze over each of Wyatt’s palms. He used clear surgical tape to keep them in place, figuring it wouldn’t be long now till the scrapes had healed and he didn’t want to restrict the flesh. It would itch, though, and Wyatt might not know to not pick at it.</p><p>“We’ll find the elixir,” Castle said finally. “We have to. You’ve got a knack for ferreting out the locations of these facilities. All we have to do is go down the list. Bound to find it.”</p><p>“Yeah, but in time?”</p><p>“She’s not-”</p><p>“She will be. You know how it is, what it does to them. She’s in stage two already, Castle.”</p><p>His hands trembled as he cleaned up. “I - know.”</p><p>“She’s healing when she shouldn’t be, feeling strong and healthy. Add to it this shit with her heart? That can’t be good.” Colin shrugged when Castle gave him a baleful look. “Sure, it’s anxiety disorder, shellshock, what-have-you. But you told me she thought she was going to die in that place if she didn’t do something. And she would have, but she had no way of knowing that, and she shouldn’t have had any indicators yet.”</p><p>Castle nodded, throwing the remnants of his first aid attempt in the trash. Wyatt was inspecting the tape and Castle guided his fingers away from it. “She’s not presenting textbook though, and that gives me hope.”</p><p>“I don’t think you can keep going on hope, Castle.”</p><p>“Col, it’s all I got.”</p><p>“What you need is elixir. You can’t tell me she’s expressing enough milk and drinking pedialyte to keep her systems from going into toxicity. Although, the way you guys apparently went at it last night, she probably sweat enough to clear out a lot of that byproduct shit.”</p><p>Castle glared, but Colin wasn’t having it. He shook his head and gave James a square of gauze he’d been reaching for. </p><p>“You know I’m right. We’re going to have to ask him for it.”</p><p>“I can’t trust him. I can’t - not with Kate in the balance. I can’t trust him, Colin.”</p><p>“We’ll have to. We don’t have a choice.” Colin reached out and gathered James from the bar stool, drew the boy against him as if James needed a hug.</p><p>Maybe he had. Maybe he did. Maybe Colin knew better what was going on in these boys’ heads than Castle did.</p><p>And where was Kate?</p><p>“I say after we do Eastman, we head straight for Alex and Ben. You hear me?” Colin bounced with James a little, letting his knees bend, and he looked both unnatural and natural at the same time. “We run straight at them, and we stun them. You know Eastman won’t have anything useful for us. You know we’re doing Eastman so you both can feel you’ve exacted some kind of revenge.”</p><p>Castle shook his head, throat closing up. “She won’t let me touch him.”</p><p>“She’s proving something, fine. Whatever it is, you know the outcome.”</p><p>“What good will it do us to run at Alex and Ben? You don’t care if we find the elixir or not, Colin. You’ve got some plan of your own and you’re only trying to incite me into-”</p><p>“Maybe I am,” Colin snapped. “But don’t you want to cut the fucking head off the snake and for once have it fucking die already?”</p><p>Castle scraped a hand down his face, tried to breathe through the pounding in his head. Was that Kate? This sense of it all crashing down on him.</p><p>“Yeah,” he finally said. Agreed. “But you and me, Colin-” He had to clear his throat and try again, his words stuck. “You and me. We have to decide here and now. What we do with him. What - what happens if he’s the new snake.”</p><p>Colin set his jaw, and it looked so incongruous with James in his arms. “We cut off his head.”</p><p>Castle sank back against the counter, bowing his head.</p><p>Wyatt came crawling carefully towards him, and at the last second, leaped for Castle’s arms. Castle jerked upright and caught him, his heart flipping at how close the kid had come to pitching headlong over the edge of the counter.</p><p>Wyatt didn’t seem to notice or care. He just curled into Castle’s chest with his hands drawn up protectively, his eyes beginning to close, his body wilting.</p><p>“Castle.” Colin was saying. “Castle, are we agreed?”</p><p>“We - have to ask Kate,” he said finally. “It’s her snake. With - if Alex is - with him gone-” Even the thought of it was making him shake. “Elixir goes with him. That has to be Kate’s choice.”</p><p>Colin’s eyes were steady and unflinching as flint. But he gave Castle a short nod and seemed to agree.</p><p>It was Kate’s choice what happened to Alex.</p><p>If he was the new snake.</p><p>-----</p><p>"Hey, look at that. Good as new."</p><p>Castle peeled the last of the tape from Wyatt's skin, revealing the freshly healed palm. Wyatt wriggled on the couch where he and James had been ensconced since the incident outside. Kate had not yet come back. Yet. He was repeating it to himself as if warding off the finality of period.</p><p>He balled up the first aid and tossed it towards the coffee table, and Wyatt giggled and crawled over his lap to the end of the couch, propping his head on the arm to watch television. But James came in close and took his brother's spot, as if the two boys were switching off who had to comfort their poor dad.</p><p>James turned in so that he was leaning against Castle's chest, and he snaked a little arm around Castle's neck with a sigh. Castle sighed in response, patting James's back, loosely embracing him. As James began to finally relax (he'd been tense since Wyatt had fallen and cried), Castle began to wonder if it wasn't, instead, for James's comfort rather than his own.</p><p>He had thought before that James needed the skin to skin connection for it to be really clear, for him to really understand, and maybe James was the worrier of the two, the caretaker, and he hadn't been able to relax until he'd known for sure that Castle wasn't going to hurt someone.</p><p>Damn, that was depressing. The wounds were deeper than he might have guessed, hidden in places he didn't have the experience to handle. Wyatt was back to being happy and easy going, but here was James, taking the brunt of both boys' fear, and nearly falling asleep on top of Castle in the aftermath.</p><p>And where was Kate?</p><p>He was pissed. He was. He hadn't meant to be, but it made him angry that she'd seen Wyatt bleeding and crying and she'd bolted. Leaving him to handle it, leaving Wyatt and James both without her presence as just reassurance that nothing bad was going to happen to them.</p><p>Although, thinking about it, he wasn't entirely sure her presence could make those kinds of promises. Since she'd had no control over what had been done to them, or how, or when - she had said something once about them being taken from her. It wasn't like her being there would have necessarily made a difference. James was still going to be rigid with that fight response, ready to defend his brother and himself if need be.</p><p>"Good boy," he murmured over James's head. Brushed down the dark hair that curled at his neck. "Being a very good brother. I know. I'm proud of you." James stirred but his eyes were closed. "You're safe. You're okay."</p><p>Poor baby. Worn out now. Falling asleep. Though it was close to lunch time anyway and the kids ought to be fed and put down for a nap. But James might not make it through lunch. Well, if Kate came back, he could nurse, and that might be comforting, might actually do the work Castle himself could never do, no matter how much love he put out there. Only Kate herself could make James feel safe.</p><p>Without warning, James flinched and jerked upright - and at the same instant, the French door flew open and Kate came through. She was panting for breath, her hair had fallen out of its knot, and her eyes were red-rimmed. But she made a beeline for him and grabbed his hand, pulling.</p><p>"Castle. Wolf. The babies. You have to-"</p><p>"Whoa, Kate. What-"</p><p>"They're trapped. It's a trap. They're caught and they can't get free and the wolf is going crazy-"</p><p>Colin came in from the kitchen side, and Castle realized he had his gun drawn. "Stand down, Colin," he snapped. "Kate, tell me where."</p><p>She gulped a breath and released his hands, cast a scattered look across the living room, and then back the way she'd come. "Down by the river - far - past the bridge and the little falls-"</p><p>Damn, he had wanted to take her there. "A few miles, then," he muttered, heaving himself up from the couch. James was still in his arms, but the boy wasn't afraid. He was maybe a little wary, watching his mother, knowing better than to reach for her. Knowing he'd be ignored? Or knowing his mother had a purpose in mind and it was best not to get in the way.</p><p>"Colin, I'm gonna need your help." He set James on the couch and the boy curled his knees up, his body so small that it hurt Castle's chest. He looked away, found Kate's absent gaze. She'd been gone, then - that kind of mental checkout she did - but the wolves had pulled her back just enough. "Kate show me where?"</p><p>"Yeah," she scraped out and turned immediately for the back doors. Colin was already following her, with his gun still in his hand, but Castle moved instead for the butcher block pushed up against the backsplash, withdrew the sharpening blade and one of the smaller steak knives.</p><p>When he got to the back door, James was watching him, though Wyatt had zoned out on the television. If they were older, he realized, he would be taking them with him. They'd be at his side. Standing back from the action, someplace safe, but still in on things, learning, a little risky he knew, he was aware of that, but that was life. This life, and this is what he had to offer them.</p><p>James held up a hand, opening and closing. Maybe good-bye, maybe just the only communication he had.</p><p>"Be right back, James," he said. "Got to help Mommy. Be good."</p><p>He cast a fast glance over the living room, cataloging all the ways it could definitely go very wrong, leaving them alone in here. </p><p>Shit.</p><p>"Be very good," he amended lamely, and then ducked out the French doors.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle had taken one look at Kate’s breathless, exhausted, scratched-up self, and he’d decided they were taking the four wheeler. He unlocked the shed at the garden gate even as she shifted on her feet, acting for the world like she was going to run.</p><p>“Settle down,” he told her quietly. Colin pushed past him into the dark, musty interior and hopped on the four wheeler, cranking the ignition before Castle could claim the spot. Instead, he let his brother reverse the thing out of the shed while he directed Kate towards the piles of thick moving blankets. “Grab those. And the leather gloves.”</p><p>She handed him the gloves and he pulled them on, shoving the knife in his outside cargo pocket and the sharpener in the other one. He nodded her out of the shed towards the four wheeler, adjusting his pants as he did. She caught on fast, straddling the seat right behind Colin with the blankets in her arms. Castle climbed on behind her and tucked his feet under hers on the running board. He had to grip the rear handle with one hand, and he threaded his other arm around Kate.</p><p>“Go, Col, go.”</p><p>The four wheeler tore off through the underbrush, and Colin steered them towards the riverbank, running parallel on the track when he could. It wasn’t as direct as running flat out like Kate apparently had done, but they’d be able to deal with the situation a lot better with tools, resources.</p><p>When Kate leaned forward to yell directions in Colin’s ear, Castle couldn’t help tightening his arm around her. But she leaned back again and nestled between his thighs, and something about her hair whipping in his face and her body settled close did the job of easing him as well.</p><p>It was three miles out, but the creek was winding as it grew in strength, and the minor falls caused them to have to drive the ridge so the four wheeler wouldn’t roll on the incline. When they made it to a spot just above the river, Castle was first off the bike, hiking down the bank as quickly as he dared, Kate and Colin following. </p><p>The trees thinned out and now he could see them, hear them whining and yipping, pain and a lot of fear in their high-pitched noises. The trap had been sprung just before a fallen log on this side of the river, and it was clear that the two wolf pups had been playing, tumbled over each other in their play, and the trap had snapped.</p><p>“Fucking hell. Someone has laid traps on our land. Fucking hell, I am going to murder someone.” It was all said under his breath, but Colin’s words still made the baby wolves mewl in fear, scrabbling weakly now in the dirt and leaves.</p><p>Castle gave his brother a foul look and gestured for him to cut it out, and then he glanced to Kate. “I need those blankets, have to throw it over them and keep them from biting or scratching. Kate.”</p><p>She startled and came back to him, something clearing in her eyes as if she was traveling a long distance. “Towels,” she repeated. “But the mama wolf.”</p><p>“Colin will keep an eye out for her.”</p><p>“No,” Kate cried out, shying closer to the place where the wolves were caught in a cross-hatched clamp. “No, he’s got a gun-”</p><p>“I’m sorry, baby, but that wolf will maul us if she thinks we’re hurting them. And it will sound like we’re hurting them.”</p><p>Agony rippled in Kate’s eyes. Colin shifted on his feet, gave Castle a brief nod, and then he  melted back into the treeline, scouting the perimeter for him.</p><p>“Kate,” he said gently. “I know, honey. I know. The blankets, keep them as muffled as I can so mama won’t come after them.”</p><p>She swallowed and nodded, and then she went running back up the bank, heading fast up the steep incline towards the four wheeler. He watched her a moment, and then he turned back around to the trap and the two squalling pups.</p><p>They were small, short legs and fuzzy heads, ears lying flat, tongues out and panting with their fear. One was mostly black with brown and the other had ribbons of white, but both were stained dark with their own blood. It had caught the black one on the hind leg, and the white spotted one on the fore, and it looked from here like the white was going to lose his paw.</p><p>Castle sat down, hoping to minimize their instinct for fear of him, and he began talking softly.</p><p>“How’d this happen, pups? You boys playing by the water, sprang a trap. I see chains, and that’s an old model, one of those cross-hatch kinds with the sawtooth mouth. No one’s supposed to lay traps on my land. We’ll get to the bottom of this. Someone might not have known it was mine, clear out here, but that’s still no good excuse. Trapping is illegal. We’re gonna get you guys out of there. It will scare you, I know, and I’m sorry for that, but it will be better in the end.”</p><p>“Castle.”</p><p>He didn’t turn, he just patted the ground beside him. “Sit with me, Kate. Slowly, hon.”</p><p>She crept towards him and sank down, the moving blankets in her arms. She seemed about to fall over under their weight, and somehow that made him feel like his own chest was in a trap, sprung, steel biting through him.</p><p>“Thanks,” he murmured, looking at her from the side of his face. The pups were yipping and yowling, but they were paying attention to him and Kate, very close attention.</p><p>He was afraid the mama wolf was going to come for them. Colin would have to shoot it if she did. </p><p>“Kate, unfold one and lay it over my lap, if you don’t mind. Slowly.”</p><p>She did, following his lead perfectly, but when the blanket obscured his hands, the two mangled puppies began to shriek, twitching and flopping over each other as their trapped legs would allow.</p><p>“Oh, God,” Kate groaned. </p><p>“Hush, love,” he said softly. “Keep it quiet. Stay quiet. I’m going to need your help. We have to throw blankets over them at the same time so I can work on prying open the trap.”</p><p>“It should have a release,” she choked out. “It has a release in the deepest part of the clamp.”</p><p>“Yes,” he said. He already knew that, but the idea that she did was interesting. “But it’s an old one, and it might snap back on us.”</p><p>“Oh, God.”</p><p>“Layer the blanket, Kate. You’ll be on the white one and he might - he might wriggle free on his own while I’m working it. You let him go if he gets free, absolutely. You hear me? You let him go.”</p><p>“I - I hear you. Wriggle fr-” She stopped abruptly and he knew it was because she saw it too, how the front paw was in shreds, pain and perhaps brotherhood the only thing keeping that white one in the trap.</p><p>It might be induced to rip its way clear. Blanket over its head, might do that.</p><p>“Make sure you wrap up those paws - the claws are sharp enough to slice open a brachial artery.”</p><p>“I got it,” she said quietly.</p><p>He glanced her way - he had to, had to be sure - but she was fully in the moment. She was with him. She had his back.</p><p>“You ready?” he murmured. </p><p>“Ride or die,” she whispered.</p><p>He shivered and shifted slowly to his knees, preparing himself to approach. “On my count of three. We’ll rush them, bag them. Keep hold behind the neck, gripping them like the mama does.”</p><p>“I got it.”</p><p>He nodded. “One.”</p><p>Beside him, she leaned forward.</p><p>“Two.”</p><p>The puppy in white was dragging his belly in the dirt, the chain twisted over his back.</p><p>“Three.”</p><p>-----</p><p>It took everything in her to keep the wolf cub from writhing out of her arms. She had a long scrape down the inside of her arm where she’d miscalculated the lunge, but she barely felt it, so caught in the adrenaline of the moment.</p><p>Castle had the black cub pinned under his thighs as he worked the knife sharpener into the crossbar that kept the trap sprung. He was strong but the wolves were wild, yanking the trap back and forth as they both jerked and yipped. Kate found herself pleading with them under her breath, praying for something she didn’t even have words for.</p><p>“Almost,” Castle breathed, grunting as he pried at the crossbar. The release hadn’t worked - he’d tried it twice and then given up, going for brute force. Kate could never have done it.</p><p>The white spotted wolf whined terribly from under the thick moving blanket, and then redoubled its efforts to escape. She hunkered down, trying to suppress its movements, but she could feel every time it yanked too hard on its caught paw, feel the resulting agony and the dog’s cringing.</p><p>And then it flipped in her arms and found purchase on her ribs and lunged - and the dog was suddenly freed. </p><p>Kate clutched the little thing, sitting shocked in the dust and dirt and blood, and the wolf was very still.</p><p>Shockingly still.</p><p>Kate’s heart pounded, but she didn’t dare let go. Just in case. Just in case. She prayed for just in case.</p><p>“Fuck,” Castle cursed. She glanced up and saw he’d realized what had happened, how one wolf was free now, but unmoving under the blanket, and he swore again and hacked at the trap with the iron of the sharpening tool. The chain rattled, still tangled by the blankets and the wolf cubs, and now they heard the howling far off.</p><p>And then the shot.</p><p>“No,” she sobbed out, lurching forward. Castle barreled into her, the whole trap and dogs and everything rattled and dragged forward with her, the one wolf cub yelping in terrorized agony.</p><p>And then another shot, another.</p><p>“Warning - warning shot,” Castle panted. She flicked her eyes away from the treeline, found his waiting, sweat running down his face and dirt caked on one cheek. “Warning shot, love. Just to keep her away.”</p><p>At that moment, the dog pinned by Castle’s thighs keened in response and wrenched violently under the blanket. Kate saw it, saw it was going to writhe free, so she fell to one side and smothered a corner of the blanket with her shoulder. Castle grunted at her; she felt the squirming body beneath it as it butted against her arm. She was half draped over Castle’s leg but now he reached past her knee to torque the trap, cursing under his breath as he grappled with it again, once more, and the cub was howling with her mother far off, high pitched and broken, and Kate was crying messily into the dirty blanket.</p><p>The wolf in her arms was cradled up against her chest rather than pinned at all. </p><p>Another gun shot in the trees and the wolf under the blanket absolutely went crazy, and at that second, Castle managed to pry apart the trap’s steel jaws.</p><p>The cub under his blanket barked in pain and knocked drunkenly into Castle’s knee, but he was already shifting his weight and letting the trap fall shut, empty. The blanket was a tangled mess, and Kate realized she was trying to free it, stupid, stupid, but Castle gripped her by the upper arm and dragged her to her feet, away.</p><p>After a second of yowling and growling, the wolf shook free the blanket and dragged/limped with that one bad leg, getting used to the skewed balance, before it took off like a streak for the thicker, deeper woods.</p><p>Kate, her body taut as a vise, looked down at the blanket bundled thing in her arms.</p><p>Castle touched her elbow and then carefully took it from her, a whisper of condolence in his voice.</p><p>But when he unwrapped the wolf, it was breathing still.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate was still crying when Colin caught up to them again. Dirt tracked tears, and Castle saw his brother take one look at her and stop short.</p><p>“I didn’t have to shoot her,” he said roughly.</p><p>Kate lifted her head and blinked, another renegade tear sliding down her cheek. He hadn’t said anything about it, as if ignoring the weeping would help her control it, and for once, Colin seemed inclined to keep his mouth shut.</p><p>“Did the - other one find her?” she scraped out.</p><p>“Think so,” Colin answered and now approached Castle tentatively, eyeing the thing still in his arms. It labored for breath, and Castle was entirely reluctant to move it from an impersonal pronoun to the he that Kate kept using.</p><p>“Made a tourniquet,” Castle said quietly to his brother. “Breathing, but labored.”</p><p>Colin stood before him with his hands in fists, gun tucked into the holster at his back, eyes on the wolf dying in Castle’s arms. “Don’t fucking need this,” he said in a low voice.</p><p>Castle cut his eyes to Kate but she was staring off towards the woods. Another tear tumbled down her face, dropped from her chin. He sighed and looked at his brother. “If this thing dies, something will die in her too.”</p><p>“Damn it all,” Colin muttered. “Fine. We’ll drive it back. I know a guy.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“The big game vet - usually horses and cows - but he’ll look at it. If I can fucking get it over to him.”</p><p>“We’ve got a raccoon cage in the shed,” Castle husked, hope beginning to flutter in his chest like a too-fast, tiny heartbeat. “Put it in that, drive the Jeep over.”</p><p>“Let’s go,” Colin said, turning now and rounding Kate up with a hand. She jerked away from him, reactionary, reflexive, and then rubbed her cheek and apologized, but Colin wasn’t listening. He’d already started for the four wheeler.</p><p>“There’s a vet he knows in town,” Castle tried to explain. “I don’t know, Kate. But-”</p><p>“Okay,” she said numbly, but she followed him to the four wheeler. </p><p>“You’ll have to hang on by yourself,” he tried, but of course that would never work. Never. Not with the way she stumbled on her own two feet. “Sit. Sit in front of me and it will go in your lap.”</p><p>He didn’t particularly want a wild animal, baby or not, in her lap for the rest of a bumpy ride back to the house, but the thing was so mangled and had lost so much blood that not even a last fighting effort would do much damage.</p><p>Might get her face. He’d put his arm over the wolf’s body, brace it down on top of her thighs.</p><p>With that solved, Castle carefully climbed onto the four wheeler behind her, tucking his feet under hers again, but this time they were carrying a wolf pup back with them.</p><p>Damn it. Of course they were. Of course.</p><p>Kate spent the whole drive with her face turned away, as if she couldn’t bear to look, both hands fisted in Colin’s shirt, Castle the only one who paid any attention to the wolf at all.</p><p>By the time they got to the shed, Castle wasn’t sure it was still breathing.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate held her elbows, arms crossed tightly to her chest, and followed Castle like a tail through the garden. Colin had already left with the wolf cub in a wire cage, still wrapped in that drab blanket, still lifeless, still limp, growing cold.</p><p>It was going to die.</p><p>She knew that. She knew.</p><p>And the mama wolf was out there, still howling. They could hear her even from here. Howling in that way of long and low and endless, howling that went on and on until it died in the wild throat.</p><p>A branch snapped back and showered her with pine-scented needles, little dull blades against her face.  She closed her eyes and ducked her head to one side, opened her eyes again as the brick path started under her feet.</p><p>Castle was a ways ahead of her now. He turned at the patio, sensing her distance, and he stopped, his eyes filled with something she couldn't look at right now. He held out his hand to her and it was all she could do to meet him. He took hold of her arm right above her pressed-in elbow, and he drew her into him.</p><p>"I left the kids alone, but come here," he murmured. His arms wrapped around her, but she shied away, wriggling out of his grip. She didn't look at him, didn't want to see if he was disappointed in her - he would be, he was, of course he was - and she couldn't do that right now.</p><p>"We left them alone," she tried to explain. Kate turned the knob of the French doors.</p><p>They were - locked.</p><p>"Castle," she gasped.</p><p>He came up behind her and reached past her for the door, chuckled in her ear. "I didn't lock them. Boys are sneaky."</p><p>"Castle, God, they're locked in!"</p><p>"Babe, I can pick my own lock," he said easily, laying his hand on her shoulder. She was shaking, she realized, realized too slow that everything was shaking. She wanted her babies. Right now.</p><p>"Castle-" she pleaded.</p><p>"Look, Kate, honey, it's on the alarm system. There's the keypad right here."</p><p>Keypad. That didn't make sense. The alarm wasn't sounding. He never explained - he just assumed she was following and he chuckled his damn amusement as he went on without her. Went ahead, blithely unaware that she was drowning here. </p><p>"You know the code, Kate. Put it in yourself. Come on." He was looming at her back. His hand came up and caressed her forearm down to her wrist, drawing her towards the keypad. </p><p>He was trying to seduce her and her sons were locked away from her. He was trying to-</p><p>"Like this. Easy," he murmured at her ear, stroking his thumb around her wrist bone as he made her fingers point. </p><p>She was so frustrated with him, but at the same time, so damn helpless to his continuous seduction. Helpless. Caged by his body, the scent of him, the width of his shoulders and the tenderness that leashed a virile and dominating power.</p><p>"Castle," she sighed. But she punched in his code just as he'd made her memorize it, and the door clicked and released the lock. "How did it do that?"</p><p>He chuckled, fingers trailing up her arm even as he nudged her through the doorway. She stumbled inside, itching where the blood had dried against her neck. Her shirt was plastered to her stomach as well, and she glanced down, saw the dirt and fur and blood, and she stopped dead.</p><p>Castle ran into her back of her with an oof, gripping her hips and bodily lifting her up and forward. But she'd seen the boys, both of them on the floor playing with an assortment of cars and blocks they'd pulled out from under the kitchen table. She came forward, dropping to her knees before them.</p><p>And stopped. Swallowed. Her shirt was a mess, her cheeks streaked with dirt, her mind a jumbled confusion of grief and ache. She didn't want to taint them.</p><p>But Wyatt grinned at her and held up a block. "Mommy, hi!"</p><p>She drew in a shaky breath and took the block from him, turning it over with her fingers. "Hi," she said softly, trying to smile.</p><p>James butted his head against her elbow and came crawling right up to her side, leaning in, heavy and limp. But alive. She combed her fingers through the curls at the back of his head.</p><p>"He's been really tired since Wyatt fell." Castle came to sit beside her; he was just as dirty and blood-stained and ragged as she was. He didn't even bother looking before he sat down, didn't seem to care that he was marring his pristine living room. "Makes me wonder if he was exerting some kind of influence to keep Wyatt calm during all that."</p><p>She had no idea what he was talking about; she just kept stroking through James's hair. Wyatt took his block back from her and got to his feet, made a line around her to throw himself at Castle's back. Castle huffed a breath and snaked an arm back to catch him, the block pressed in at his throat in a way that had to be uncomfortable.</p><p>He didn't show it. He was smiling and talking to Wyatt, and then he was on his feet and carrying the boy on his back, and Wyatt looked entirely thrilled. Half scared to death, but squeaking with his excitement as he was jostled and bounced piggy-back style.</p><p>James stirred on her thigh, his eyes open, but he didn't get up to join in and demand his own turn. He was smiling; she saw that much. </p><p>"You love it," Castle was saying to Wyatt, and then to her, smiling so cheerfully that she realized it was a little forced. Only a little. Wyatt had made him happy, throwing himself at his daddy, and Castle was quick to make a game of it. But he still felt her too.</p><p>He felt her. Did James feel her too? How mangled she was, like it had been her own heart in that rusty trap. </p><p>"Hey, Kate? You hear me?"</p><p>She roused, glancing up at him, her hand still rhythmically stroking James's hair but her mind had been gone. Long gone. "I.. no. What?"</p><p>"We should clean up. I'll first aid your arm. And then lunch and naptime for these two. James especially. I thought maybe... you might nurse him first thing after getting cleaned up. Just a thought."</p><p>She glanced down at the pitiful boy, the exhausted little body tucked neatly against her, eyes drooping again. "Nurse him instead of waking him to eat," she repeated. "Yeah, good idea. Good - you'll sit with us?"</p><p>Castle looked astonished. She was too, actually. "Yeah, I will. We all will. Might be good for us to lay low for a few hours anyway. I'll have to make some phone calls, get some recon done so we can find out who set the traps on our land."</p><p>She shivered, hand stilling on James. The boy roused and came crawling into her lap, and she was forced to embrace him to keep him from sliding off her thighs. "Will Colin call when he - knows?"</p><p>"He'll call," Castle promised. "He'll tell us what's happened."</p><p>He would call. He would. He had the same sick look in his eyes that Castle had had. </p><p>James curled his fingers at her neck and began to stroke, just as she was doing to him, mimicking her own soothing as if she needed it.</p><p>Who was she kidding? She needed it.</p><p>-----</p><p>Wyatt seemed to think it was hilarious to be eating grapes and cheese slices in bed with them. He had also spilled his blueberries across the comforter, prompting Castle to roll them back his way, and that had started a new game. She thought it was kind of sweet, actually, and while she nursed James with her body propped against the headboard and the pillows, Castle paced the foot of the bed to make his phone calls, stopping from time to time to flick grapes back towards Wyatt.</p><p>Castle had tasked a satellite. He hadn't meant to be impressive, she was sure, but she was impressed. And with it came a thread of arousal that kept trying to spark at the oddest moments. </p><p>James flicked his fingers back and forth against her breast, the rhythm of his own suckling, and his quiet and earnest little face held so much emotion. His eyes kept opening to stare up at her, even when he could hear Castle talking maybe a little too stridently, James only had eyes for her. Raised eyebrows, furrowed brow, didn't matter. He was communicating to her about Castle, as if all he needed was to touch base with her and he was good.</p><p>She thought she might have needed it too. Touch base with him. With both her boys.</p><p>Kate stroked her finger over his little brow, watching him nurse. Letting herself feel it. Be lost in it. He communed with her, she with him, and she only occasionally had to shift a foot to keep out of Wyatt's busy way. </p><p>When James had fallen asleep at her breast, she slowly detached him, wiping milk from the corner of his mouth. She leaned back on a steeper incline, brought James up to lay him on her chest, fumbling a little with the triangle of her bra until she had it closed again. Her shirt was crooked, but James was heavily asleep, and the weight of him was intoxicating.</p><p>She closed her eyes, drifting.</p><p>She didn't know how long it'd been when Wyatt clambered over her knees and came climbing up her thighs to lay his head down on her stomach. She dropped one hand to the nape of his neck, rubbed slow circles under his shirt. He smelled like lunch and play, but he was a tired boy.</p><p>"Hey," came softly just over her head.</p><p>Kate opened her eyes, feeling like she was moving in molasses. Castle sank to the mattress at her side, stroked her hair back from her face. </p><p>"The vet has the wolf pup. Had to separate some of the bones and remove them, stitch up the artery. Lost a lot of blood, but the vet has hopes."</p><p>"Hopes?" she croaked out. Unable to comprehend.</p><p>"If he makes it through the night. Might be able to tame it."</p><p>"Tame it?" she whispered.</p><p>"Can't go back out there as a puppy with a missing paw. Wolves eat their young if-"</p><p>"God," she shuddered, turning her head from him.</p><p>"The vet will board him. See if he can be tamed."</p><p>"You can't tame a wild thing," she said quietly.</p><p>Castle's hand touched her shoulder, and then he skimmed lightly over James's back. "Sometimes, if you get to them early and show them love, unconditional love and patience, sometimes you can."</p><p>"No," she sighed. "All you do is teach them manners."</p><p>His eyes met hers. "Sometimes manners are all we need."</p><p>-----</p><p>“There’s a program, actually,” Colin said, keeping his voice down. He’d taken a fast look past Castle’s shoulder when he’d come through the living room, but he seemed intent on not knowing Kate’s condition. “This guy has a sanctuary behind the pet hospital and he said he usually does wild dogs, but he thinks he can break the wolf. Young enough.”</p><p>Castle nodded, shoulder propped against the side of the bookshelf in the living room. “I’d take it, him. I’d take the wolf if he really can be broken. I mean - take responsibility, at the very least, but more if I can. Boys need a dog, right? But I think Kate feels a kind of attachment to... the thing’s predicament.”</p><p>Colin raised both eyebrows, but he didn’t comment on Castle’s understatement. “Well. You know a thing that’s wild won’t ever be-”</p><p>“It’s not like I’d have it in the house. Him. Did the vet name him?”</p><p>“Well...”</p><p>Castle crossed his arms over his chest. “Well?”</p><p>“He said if you came up with something. Bloody hell, Castle. You can’t seriously be thinking you can take care of a wild dog on top of everything else.”</p><p>“Why not?” he shot back. “I’ve already got the everything else, don’t I? So. Fuck. Add a wild dog.”</p><p>“Damn,” Colin muttered, shaking his head. But Castle knew there was more, something else to it. Colin had that look on his face that he got when Castle was right and he didn’t want to admit it. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but the vet thinks the mama wolf had some on the side. That pup has dog in him. He’s pretty sure.”</p><p>A strange relief loosened in his chest. “Dog. That’s - good, right? Easier to break in a wild dog. And. We’ve got the land. Soon as I clear up this trapping business, we’ll have safe land where he can roam. Or - you know - if he remembers it, and he wants to go, he’s free to go.”</p><p>Colin rubbed a hand down his face. “She’s not the only one with an attachment to this wolf.”</p><p>Castle set his jaw. “You know me.”</p><p>“Always fixing broken wings,” Colin muttered. But Colin himself was a broken-winged bird, and he knew it, and there wasn’t much he could say about it.</p><p>“So we’ll have a wolf dog. Might be good, give Kate a pressure-less companion when it’s too much.”</p><p>Colin flashed him a look, and Castle knew it was bad. That he had it bad, already planning for a time when Kate would need to bolt. Just as she’d done this morning, running off right when Wyatt had needed her.</p><p>“Fine. Name the damn dog.” Colin dug a business card out of his back pocket and held it out. “Call him - he wants to talk to you anyway.”</p><p>Castle took the business card, tucked it into his own pocket. There was more, he knew there would be, Colin couldn’t leave it alone.</p><p>Colin flicked his eyes past Castle to the open doorway of his bedroom. “She stable yet?”</p><p>Castle didn’t rise to the bait. He gave his brother a contemplative look and leaned back against the bookcase. “She’s asleep. So are the boys, though my guess is that Wyatt will wake pretty soon.”</p><p>Colin shifted on his feet. “It’s my fault. But - I don’t regret it. I won’t.”</p><p>“Your - fault?” Castle said carefully.</p><p>“I told her it was better to run. I told her if she cared at all for you, for the boys, she’d fucking take off when the mood came down on her. Run or she risked stabbing you in the back.”</p><p>Castle’s nostrils flared, jaw gritting. </p><p>“Don’t look at me like that,” Colin growled. “It’s the only thing that fucking works. You don’t understand. Either I get the fuck out of Dodge or I wind up ruining the only thing that matters to me.”</p><p>Castle’s arms dropped to his sides. “Me?”</p><p>“You’re my brother. My family. You are all I have. And I’m a self-destructive bastard, you know I am, and I gotta at least keep from taking you down with me.”</p><p>Castle leaned forward and gripped his brother by the shoulder, frowning fiercely. “You won’t bring me down. I can take it. You fucking idiot. I can take it.”</p><p>“You don’t know how bad it gets - I get,” Colin rasped, shrugging him off. “And now you’ve got two kids. You’re more necessary now than ever.  I won’t do it to them either.”</p><p>Castle opened his mouth to set Colin straight, but his brother brushed him off and turned to escape the living room, leaving Castle standing there.</p><p>Fucking hell.</p><p>That wasn’t how family worked. Two boys, sure, and Kate too if she wanted him, but fucking hell. That only meant there were three more to share the load, to fucking care what happened to Colin.</p><p>And he had never been able to make Colin believe that. He was afraid he’d never prove it to Kate either.</p><p>Castle realized, with a sudden sharp clarity, that he was going to always be the one left standing here. He would always be the one left behind.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate curled into him.</p><p>Warmth.</p><p>She woke urgently, brought up suddenly by a sense she didn’t understand, opened her eyes to find Castle beside her, her body tangled with his. “James-”</p><p>“Upstairs, asleep in his own bed. Wyatt’s with Colin in the living room.” So matter of fact. And then the back of his hand brushed her cheek. They were face to face on the pillow. </p><p>“Wolf?” she croaked, aching everywhere.</p><p>“Cone around his head, hopping mad about it too. Vet said he might have to put him under sedation if he keeps trying to walk on the wound.”</p><p>“Walking wounded,” she echoed, the phrase sticking inside her. Eyes were heavy. Whole body was an ache, throbbing. She had run. Felt good at first, stretching those muscles in her legs, getting out, away, getting far away.</p><p>And then almost hadn’t made it back.</p><p>“Fell,” she sighed, nudging her forehead into him.</p><p>“You fell?”</p><p>She mumbled assent and wound her arm around his waist, wriggled closer to the heat of him. </p><p>“Baby, you fell when?”</p><p>“Running back to get help.”</p><p>“You hurt?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“And we fucked hard,” he murmured. A jolt went through her at the soft tenderness of the way he said fuck and it burned in her belly. Arousal again. How could she be so damn aroused and yet feel so abused and broken at the same time?</p><p>“What does one have to do with the other?” she finally got out.</p><p>“You’re a - were - a virgin. And I’m huge, you said so yourself. Res ipsa loquitur-”</p><p>Kate barked out a laugh, lifting her head to look at him. </p><p>“What?” he said.</p><p>“Castle, my parents were lawyers.”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>“So I know what that means. ‘The thing speaks for itself.’ Your cock? Is that what you’re saying? Because, honestly-” She had fumbled in her attempt, arm tangled in blankets he’d drawn over her, and she missed his crotch by a mile. </p><p>But he laughed back, caught her arm with a loose grasp, drew it back around his waist. “Yes. The thing does speak for itself, don’t you agree?”</p><p>Her lips quirked, but she kinda liked it. His arrogance and supreme self-confidence. It was so nice to have someone who didn’t doubt himself in the least little bit. “Yeah, baby, I agree.  Should I call your cock The Thing from now on?”</p><p>Castle growled and darted in, drew an almost brutal kiss from her mouth. “Hell, no. You are not naming my cock. Otherwise I might get split personality, and I’m the only one inside you.”</p><p>She shivered and pressed her body in against his, inside you on a loop in her head. And okay, maybe also I’m the only one held starring role as well. She liked that too. Really liked the possession. Being had.</p><p>“You’ve got bruises on your back?”</p><p>She stiffened, but Castle’s fingers trailed lightly under her shirt, bumping along her spine. </p><p>“Bruised, and scratched too? If I’d known, I’d have put some antibiotic ointment here too.”</p><p>“Just skinned,” she defended. “Tumbled a little down the bank as I tried climbing up.”</p><p>He studied her face, as if there ought to be something more, but she didn’t know what he needed to hear, wanted to hear. There was just the truth, and she thought that should be more than enough.</p><p>She hadn’t really meant to say that much in the first place. He just kinda somehow made it come tumbling out of her.</p><p>“Anywhere else?”</p><p>“My knees,” she said, and lowered her chin to squirm closer to him. </p><p>He didn’t berate her for falling, and he didn’t tell her she should have told him. Actually, running his fingers over the raw places almost hurt, a strange awareness of sensitivity where the skin was broken and scabbed now, almost an itch.</p><p>“We’ll see what happens by tonight,” he said finally. “How fast.”</p><p>“How fast?” she mumbled against his shirt.</p><p>“How fast you heal.”</p><p>She froze.</p><p>His kiss brushed her temple. “I hope not, for your sake. I hope it’s still angry red and bruised. That would be the best scenario, strangely enough.”</p><p>She nodded her head against him, and his palm splayed out at her back, a brand.</p><p>She didn’t want to die. God, it was so sharp all of the sudden. So brutally painful. She didn’t want to die. She wanted things. She wanted to have sex with him again and in as many strange and wonderful positions as he could teach her, as many kinky ways of doing it.</p><p>And not just that. Not just that, in case that wasn’t enough. She wanted another chocolate chip cookie like the one she’d had at the mall - huge and gooey. And watch the boys riding the train around and around again. She wanted that moment of sitting in the sunshine and watching them and thinking, I could just leave and yet not doing it. Being able to stay right where she’d been and watch the boys and then Castle coming back to the bench and looking so proud of her and pleased with himself too.</p><p>She wanted that wolf to live.</p><p>“What happens to the wolf without its paw?”</p><p>Castle shifted to his back, drawing her with him so that she was pressed against his side. Her back stung where he touched her and she arched into the feeling, relishing it.</p><p>“Well,” he said quietly. But he didn’t keep going.</p><p>“He can’t go back to his mama, can he?” she sighed.</p><p>“No, honey.”</p><p>“She’d eat him?”</p><p>“I don’t know that she would, specifically, but the poor thing would be a liability to her and the other one anyway. And get picked off first should it come to that.”</p><p>“Poor thing,” she echoed with a sigh. “Can we...” She had no idea. A wild animal. Not smart, Beckett.</p><p>“The vet has a break program for wild dogs; he basically housetrains them. Wild dogs, the kind that have gone feral or gotten dropped off - even the ones born out there. He’s going to try for us.”</p><p>“But. It’s a wolf.” You couldn’t just break in a wild animal.</p><p>“It’s part dog, he says,” Castle explained. “The vet thinks the mama wolf got culled from her pack for it too.”</p><p>“Wait. What?”</p><p>“A little star-crossed lovers, honey. Romeo and Juliet in the animal kingdom.”</p><p>She lifted her head to gape down at him on the pillow. “You’re a closet romantic.”</p><p>“Am I really in the closet on that one?”</p><p>She laughed, startled into it by the sincerity in his voice, and she shook her head and pushed up with her toes to give him a little kiss for it. He grinned into her lips and tugged his hand out from under her shirt - tangled his fingers in her hair instead, keeping her down against him.</p><p>She felt her hips rock against his hip, her cheeks burning as she realized how damn needy he made her.</p><p>“You’re my wolf,” he murmured at her jaw. Lips painted a line along her neck. He was rolling over her now, pressing her down to the mattress. “And I’m a dog in heat-”</p><p>“Then you’d be a bitch,” she mumbled, unable to help herself. And yet his mouth was wicked, his fingers sliding under her shirt, her back chafing against the mattress.</p><p>“Don’t ruin my story with your logic,” he chastised. His mouth came down over her shirt and sucked wetly at her breast. She groaned and arched into him, wishing desperately for her bra off. Everything off.</p><p>His fingers teased under the wire of her bra, tugging on the material. “Are you too bruised - inside and out - for this?”</p><p>“No,” she cried out. “No, not too anything for this. Please, please-”</p><p>“Then stand up and strip for me. Go a little wild, wolf.”</p><p>Her eyes flared open.</p><p>He was deadly intent on her.</p><p>“Let me up,” she whispered. “Let me.”</p><p>Castle dragged his body down hers as he rose, and then his hands gripped hers and pulled her to her feet with him.</p><p>She put her hands to the hem of her shirt and ripped it off over her head.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Castle wasn’t allowed to touch. </p><p>She combed her fingers through his hair and ground her hips against his crotch and he could only grit his teeth and watch and feel as her dirty lap dance went on. She leaned in over him, hummed something just at his ear, rocking her hips and sliding her fingers under the hem of his shirt.</p><p>She had made him sit on his hands. He was gripping the backs of his own thighs to keep from grabbing for her. </p><p>Kate touched her mouth to his neck and he groaned.</p><p>“Lift your arms,” she murmured. It took him a moment, a heartbeat of dazed stupor before he could follow her instructions. When he raised his hands, she shucked his shirt off and tossed it away, grinning down at him.</p><p>Kate shoved on his shoulders and he fell back to the mattress at her touch, unable to help himself any longer. He wrapped his hands above her knees, kneading the taut, strong muscles that held her up. She pressed her palms flat to his chest and loomed over him, her hair falling forward.</p><p>She looked like a succubus. She looked like a silkie, gorgeous, beautiful woman perched over him. He’d been told not to touch, but he couldn’t help himself.</p><p>Castle lifted a hand and touched her hair, rubbed the ends against his thumb. She blinked, the mood shifting from her rakish daring to that strange connection, as if his fingers in her hair and her eyes on him completed some circuit.</p><p>“Don’t do that,” she husked.</p><p>“Not my doing,” he answered. “Just there. Connection.”</p><p>Her hand lifted to his, gently clasping around his fingers. “I said no touching, Castle.”</p><p>He opened his mouth but she pressed his arm down to the mattress, held him there. She shifted her weight to pin him, and now her free hand came to his at her thigh and released him with a touch.</p><p>Now she had both his hands pinned above his head and her body hot and compact over his hips and straddling his thighs. She rocked against him, her eyes growing dark at the sparking of sensation that shivered between them.</p><p>“Kate,” he grunted.</p><p>“No touching, Castle.” She dipped forward and touched her mouth to his, her tongue stroking his, languid, unrushed. But the heat of her, the power of her over him made his blood roar in his head, pulse just under his skin. He moaned into her mouth and sucked greedily on her tongue, urging her on, but she refused to be urged.</p><p>She broke their kiss and hovered above him, his lips chasing hers, unable to rise to meet her. He grunted in frustration and she curled her lips in dark, brutal discovery.</p><p>“Kate.” He bucked his hips up against her, wanting her. His pants weren’t even off; she was just cool liquid sex above him and he was burning for her. </p><p>She lifted up and traced her fingers down the inside of his wrists, the vulnerable forearms, inside to his ribs. He was shuddering under her touch, enraptured by the way her hair fell forward as she circled his navel and came to the button of his pants.</p><p>“Ka-ate,” he groaned.</p><p>His zipper, nudge and then nudge and then her thumb stroking his boxer briefs. He growled and lifted his hips, invitation and urgency both, and she tugged on his pants and let them drop. </p><p>Castle’s hips bumped up into her, but she had her hands already inside his boxers, stroking him and scratching her nails over his thighs as she pulled those off as well. He whined, hips shifting against the bed, ass bare to the light, fluttering touch she explored him with.</p><p>“Kate-”</p><p>She spread her thighs over him once more, sank down until their naked groins touched. </p><p>“Fuck!”</p><p>“About to, honey, hush,” she murmured, rocking a little against him. </p><p>“You’re so wet,” he whined. “Please, baby.”</p><p>She nudged a kiss down to his bare chest, licked up to his throat so he gasped. “You gonna be good, or do I have to hold you down?”</p><p>“Hold me,” he croaked.</p><p>She hummed something, vital, electric, the sound and feel of her traveling straight to his cock. Her fingers closed around his wrists once more, but she came down with him, her breasts to his chest, her body rubbing.</p><p>“Kate,” he rasped. Wanted so badly. So badly wanted her. “Kate. Kate-”</p><p>“Hush, love, I got you.” Her body rocked, the wet slide of her open, weeping sex against his throbbing cock. He still had his pants around his ankles and his feet on the floor and he bucked harder, wanting.</p><p>“Kate, want you, want inside you right-”</p><p>Her fingers closed around him and he groaned, shuddering as it went through him, words disappearing entirely. Just the burn of her fingers and the hot slide of her sex as she teased them both, such a tease, so fucking teasing-</p><p>“Now, Kate, fuck. Fuck, you have to let me in, baby, or I’m gonna come between us just like this.”</p><p>She whimpered and dipped her forehead to his chest, panting hard, her body rocking frantically against him. “Can’t - find it. Can’t find how it’s supposed to go. Help me, Castle-”</p><p>Can’t find-</p><p>Fuck. She hadn’t been teasing at all; she’d been trying to find herself. </p><p>“Are you fucking-” He growled and flipped his wrist, breaking her hold just that easily. His hand came down between them and he pushed a finger inside her, groaning when he felt how fucking tight she was. “No, baby, you had it right. Just - fuck - you’re so swollen and tight again.”</p><p>She whimpered against his chest, her hips rocking in that intense, terrible rhythm, like she couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop it at all. And that might be best, might loosen her up enough for him, because as it was, she’d been trying to get him there and it hadn’t been happening.</p><p>Well. He could get there. But he might fucking break her in the process.</p><p>Fuck. She might like that.</p><p>She might like that.</p><p>Castle slicked a second finger inside her and she gasped, arching into him, a palm on the center of his chest, her eyes wide.</p><p>He curled his fingers against her front wall, and she moaned, head dropping forward again, hair spilling in that lovely dark halo. His dark angel. He flicked his thumb at her clit and she stiffened, breasts thrust forward and nipples so flushed and dark, begging.</p><p>He worked his fingers deeper, felt her beginning to contract, and he lifted up just enough, sealed his mouth over her nipple.</p><p>She gasped, and her orgasm fluttered and pulsed around his fingers. While she was still in the grips of it, he worked a third finger inside her, stretching, kneading those walls. Her nipple in his mouth was tart and bitter, no milk at all, but he loved the taste of it, the taste of her, the swollen flesh of her breast and the wet, thick flesh between her legs.</p><p>She cried out, her second orgasm chasing the first, and now her sex opened for him, that wide mouth. He growled in triumph and slipped out of her, found his cock and lined himself up just that fast.</p><p>She groaned as he pushed inside of her. Her contractions were still intense, orgasms like a daisy-chain, milking his cock. He let go of her breast and lifted his mouth to hers, took the noises she made, that constant whimpering and pleading she did.</p><p>“Castle, Castle, Castle,” she chanted, the second he pulled back from her lips. She chased him, and the thrust of her tongue was like a demand. He obeyed, gripping one of her hips to keep her steady, and thrust hard.</p><p>She cried out against his tongue, whimpering as he set a fast rhythm. But he had to - he couldn’t hold off, but worse, more, she was already over-used. Her sex had been so damn tight, so swollen, that he knew he had to be more careful. Had to take care of her. She didn’t seem to know how fucking far they’d pushed her body.</p><p>“Castle,” she whimpered.</p><p>He banded his other arm around her and rubbed his mouth against her breast as she rocked over him. The bounce of her breasts, the peculiar heat of her nipple and the cool of her skin, the sweat at her stomach where it kissed his, glancing.</p><p>“Baby,” she whispered. “Oh. I-”</p><p>Her lashes fluttered and suddenly she was coming around him, drawing at him hard and tight, impossibly tight. </p><p>With her arm around his neck and her breasts at his mouth, her sex clutching at him, he finally let go, his climax more intense than he’d realized, more uncontrolled. </p><p>Castle groaned as he released, crushing her body to his, dragging his mouth up to her throat and sucking.</p><p>She slumped against him, her body boneless and liquid, and he dropped back to the mattress. Her cheek was pressed over his heart, one of her fingers rubbing the length of his rib.</p><p>She sighed. His hand came to her back and touched her hair, dropped to rest between her shoulder blades.</p><p>Her whole body relaxed.</p><p>He kissed the top of her head. “We have to name it,” he murmured. “The wolf. He needs a name so the vet can start.”</p><p>She stirred, only a little, but her finger flicked against his rib. “Wolf.”</p><p>Wolf.</p><p>-----</p><p>She roused when he carried her into the shower stall, gasping when the water hit her body. "Cold, cold - Castle-"</p><p>"Hang on, sorry, how's this?"</p><p>She shivered but already tiny needles of heat bore into her, bringing her shoulders back down. He was carrying her like she carried the boys, her legs wrapped around his waist and her head on his shoulder. She only had to scrunch up a little to fit, and it was strangely comfortable, the hard lines of his body against hers.</p><p>"Ouch," she mumbled, water sluicing down her back now, trickling between them and stinging at her arm.</p><p>"Real fast," he murmured at her hair. "Just to rinse us off. Sweat and - you know. The rest."</p><p>She slanted an eye at him, water running down into her face before he angled her away. "The rest of what?"</p><p>He strangled on a laugh and shook his head. "Sex is messy, babe."</p><p>"Not if we do it right," she said, tilting her head. "I mean, you came inside me. I felt it."</p><p>He shivered and dipped his head, left his open mouth against her cheekbone, his tongue darting out an electric swipe of her skin. "You are so fucking hot. And yet so damn sweet sometimes. Here, honey, feel this."</p><p>He gripped her under the ass tighter and took one of her hands, brought their tangled fingers between them to the heat at her groin. She felt the slick arousal there, and she didn't mind a little dampness in her panties - he somehow made her damp all the time, creaming all the beautiful new silk, but it would wash. It wasn't a prob-</p><p>"Oh," she croaked, forehead crashing against his shoulder. She was leaking, he was leaking out of her. She felt it. The way it ran between her fingers in this sluggish retreat. "Fuck, how does anyone ever get pregnant if it comes back out?"</p><p>He laughed, but he sounded unmanned, and it made the laughing okay. He liked her, he really liked her talking like she did, and she liked to know so it made it just fine.</p><p>"They're supposed to swim up, baby. Well, I don't have any - empty payload, basically. But if I did, they'd swim for the holy land."</p><p>"Oh." She wrinkled her nose and shivered, something alien and repulsive about things swimming inside her. "I'm glad you don't. I'm sorry - is that bad? But I don't think I could do-"</p><p>"Fuck, fuck," he cursed, and then he had her pinned against the wall, that whine in his throat that meant she'd pushed him hard and he was trembling on the edge. "You will never be pregnant again. Never."</p><p>Kate shivered, knees gripping his hips, tightening to keep him close. "Don't talk - about it. Don't-"</p><p>"Never."</p><p>"Just them," she got out, pressing her cheek to his, hard. Harder. Pressing until she felt the bones in her jaw shift. "Just them. They're - worth - worth-"</p><p>She gulped down a breath and couldn't get the rest out. Castle ground her spine into the wall and the pain of her bruises and scrapes was good, was sparking through her nerves and firing through her head, pushing out everything else. </p><p>Her body ached. </p><p>More than her heart.</p><p>He kissed her roughly and she wound her free arm around his neck, surging into his mouth. He turned her suddenly, putting her back under the spray, and now his hand tangled with hers began to gently, gently wash her clean.</p><p>She sucked on his tongue and hoped she could ask him later. Later.</p><p>Bite me there. She wanted his teeth. She wanted him to eat her, take his mouth and - and don't waste it. Don't wash it down the drain.</p><p>Was that bad?</p><p>She bet she could make him do it.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate looked better this afternoon, and Castle assumed no small amount of male pride as he studied her. She moved stiffly, as if muscles and bones were slightly disarranged, but even with those flickering winces, he could tell that she was at ease again in her own skin.</p><p>It seemed miraculous, after everything.</p><p>Castle was on the phone with the ex-KGB officer who'd tasked a satellite, and the images were being faxed to his panic room - soon he and Colin would sweep the land of traps and hunt down the no-count asshole who'd done in the first place. Col already had a lead on the guy - a local hunter about whom the vet had heard unsavory rumors.</p><p>After Vasily, Castle's phone rang again and it was the vet calling him back, and he went over the details of the program. "Wolf," he said, when the vet wanted to know what they'd be naming him. "My wife's idea."</p><p>Kate shot him a look from across the room - apparently she was paying as close attention to him as he was to her - and he lifted both eyebrows at her, daring her to say differently. He'd bought her that wedding ring for a reason. Sometimes they were just going to have to use a cover story, and having a built-in family was easiest. </p><p>Plus she seemed to perform really well under the cover. She was used to being disingenuous; she had been-</p><p>"Hey, Murphy?" the vet said. "I said tomorrow. You can make it?"</p><p>"Not tomorrow," he muttered. So Colin was using Murphy here. Made sense. The Murphy legend was simple and hard to trace, and he had a brother. He could be Dan Murphy for a few days. "We've got a trip planned with the boys. What a way to ruin a vacation, huh? If mykids had wandered into that damn trap-"</p><p>"It's a nightmare. We have poachers crawling up our asses out here," the vet said nastily. He was an older man, probably mid-sixties, and he spoke like he'd been a three-pack-a-day smoker his whole life, like he craved a cigarette even now. "Look, the pup will need someone to bond with. So whoever is gonna be the one feeding him, taking care of him - if that's you or her, doesn't matter - just need someone."</p><p>"Can we start day after tomorrow?"</p><p>"One more day. Can't hurt. I'll do some prelim with him, getting him used to being touched, handled."</p><p>"Thanks. I appreciate that. I think my wife will be the one."</p><p>Kate's eyes darted to his again, but he gave her an encouraging and entirely patronizing thumbs up and she flipped him off. Castle smothered a laugh and signed off with the vet, hanging up his phone again.</p><p>She stood up from the floor where she'd been playing blocks with Wyatt and James, and she stalked him across the kitchen. "Rick Castle. What did you just sign me up for?" She gripped his hips and nudged him back until his spine hit the granite counter top.</p><p>And then she pressed fully against him and rocked her hips suggestively.</p><p>He growled and dropped in for a kiss, claiming the indignant set of her mouth. She hummed into his kiss, almost a growl, a kind of purr that spoke of a lioness lazy and pretending to be tamed. </p><p>Sure enough, one of her hands sneaked in under his shirt and caressed the sensitive skin above his hip bone, the backs of her fingers trailing along the line of his waistband.</p><p>"Fuck, baby, gotta hold that thought," he husked, scraping his cheek against hers so she felt just as abraded as he did. Steel wool, and he was scoured clean by her. "After we handle Eastman, we'll have some lag time between research intel and action intel-"</p><p>"Decode the spy, baby."</p><p>"Whatever information we get from Eastman, we'll have to come back here and regroup. Figure out what's real and not real, what we can actually handle ourselves, how much is pertinent, which leads to follow. And then we'll go back out again. You need elixir - probably a slow infusion and not a fucking shot, like I gave you-"</p><p>"No recriminations, please," she said quietly. Her fingers made the sign of a star on his back. Strange. Erotic in its specificity. "I need elixir, fine. And where are we getting it?"</p><p>"Whatever Eastman says might make a difference. But - might have to confront Alex. We'll see. But in the meantime, in the interim, the waiting sucks, especially if you're waiting on other people to make up their minds, so this is perfect. You'll train the wolf."</p><p>"I will?" she startled, her eyes wide.</p><p>"Yeah. Why wouldn't you? Division of labor - Col and I can't do it because we want to get on this, whatever Eastman says and whatever shit Colin can dig up on the facilities."</p><p>"I'm expendable," she said wryly, a lift of an eyebrow.</p><p>"Not one bit," he growled. "You've given us the intel you have, you've gone to a fucking sketch artist and did a computer program. You did your job. Now we do our jobs. Division of labor, Beckett. Don't willfully mistake me."</p><p>Her face went blank, completely smooth, so that he had no idea what was going on behind her eyes.</p><p>And then suddenly she was resting her body against his, angled back as he was at the counter, and when her hips settled flush to his own and her cheek came to the top of his shoulder, her cold nose to his neck, he found himself widening his stance and looping his arms around her back, cradling her.</p><p>"You're the very least expendable," he murmured to the top of her head. "The least."</p><p>-----</p><p>“Where’s Colin?” she asked, craning her neck to see Castle as he came around the kitchen table. She was trying to feed the boys dinner, but they were more interested in the buzz of activity going on.</p><p>Castle sank to the back of the couch, pausing for a moment as if making special time to address her concerns. He was slightly insufferable when he was in mission mode, but at the same time, the flop of hair in his eyes and the serious slant of his mouth made him kind of cute.</p><p>“He’s outside springing traps while it’s still light. We found the asshole who set them; we’re gonna put up a perimeter outside his fucking house. See if he likes it.”</p><p>Kate’s jaw dropped.</p><p>Castle lifted an eyebrow. “He doesn’t have kids,” he said, as if that made it okay, what they wanted to do. “We do.”</p><p>“But-”</p><p>“They’ll be in plain sight. Unlike his.”</p><p>Kate sat back in the chair, studying him, but James dropped his spoon to the bowl and sent it clattering, rice cereal and bananas splattering them both.</p><p>The boys froze. They looked petrified. Wyatt made a strange keening sound in the back of his throat, but James grunted and Wyatt seemed to gulp a breath and get himself together.</p><p>Kate stared at them, mushy rice cereal and bananas speckling her forearms and her shirt, the table sloshed with it, but all of her concern for the boys. The way they were rigid with fear.</p><p>Castle leaned forward, swiped his finger in a long smear of cereal and popped it in his mouth. “Mmm, good.” He sucked the puree from his finger with a pop of his mouth, grinned at the boys. </p><p>Wyatt giggled first, breaking his too-still vigilance, giggled again when Castle made a goofy face at him. James eyed them warily, the back and forth going on, and when Castle stood and approached Wyatt, James jerked in his chair as if to stop him.</p><p>Castle leaned forward and scooped Wyatt out of his seat, bounced him on his hip just a little, the two of them making goofy faces at each other, Wyatt pealing with laughter. But Kate watched James, saw him ease back into his chair, and then his quick look to her.</p><p>“It’s okay, honey,” she murmured softly, leaning forward and straighten his bowl. “I can make you more. Do you want more cereal, baby?” </p><p>She stood and came around the table, dusted the top of his head with a kiss even while Castle carried Wyatt to the kitchen sink, feeding him spoonfuls from the bowl he held.</p><p>James gave her a kind of desperate look. She kissed both his cheeks, one after another, and she squatted before him. “You’re okay, baby. It’s okay. Just spilled a little. We can get more, or something else.” And when James craned his neck to see Castle and Wyatt behind him at the sink, she went on. “Wyatt is okay too, honey. Daddy’s got him.”</p><p>James sank back into his chair, looking a little miserable with himself, sitting in his banana and rice cereal mess. She cupped the side of his face, rubbed her thumb over his cheek. His own misery, and not hers at all. He was just as good at feeling inadequate and imperfect as she was.</p><p>Damn.</p><p>Castle came back around the bar with Wyatt balanced on one hip, and he leaned out over the table and wiped it clean with a dish rag. “Okay, got that. Here, want it for him?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she said, lifting a hand to take it from him. She wiped quickly at James’s face, taking a page from Castle’s book and giving him a goofy grin. James gave her a rather desperate smile back, as if he was trying so hard, and she wondered if maybe this wasn’t how to handle James at all.</p><p>She wiped him clean, dropped the dish rag into the mostly empty bowl, and then she leaned in and picked him up. If James was a lot like her, then the goofy smiles could only go so far. Distraction.</p><p>“Hey,” she said suddenly, snagging Castle’s sleeve as he passed with Wyatt. “Take us with you when you go to that hunter’s place.”</p><p>“What?” he startled, stopping at her side. He ducked his head to meet James’s eyes and gave the boy a kind of eyebrow-dancing grin, making James smile bashfully and bury his face in her shirt.</p><p>“Distract us,” she told Castle. “Get us out of our funk.”</p><p>“You in a funk?”</p><p>“Well.” She gestured to James, Wyatt. “Sometimes I think a lot more happened to them than I know. I mean I know a lot more happened to them. Shows up like - just now. Makes me crazy, wondering what happened, why James had that look on his face just for dropping a bowl of cereal.”</p><p>“Distraction then,” he said slowly. “Hey, we might go by the vet’s office after, what do you think? Let the boys see the wolf, maybe you could talk to the vet about what happens with the program?”</p><p>“Oh,” she said. “I - yeah.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he said, nodding. His free hand came out and cupped the back of James’s head. “James, why don’t you come with me? Mommy will take Wyatt. Let’s see if we can’t get you some more food”</p><p>They switched boys, Kate letting James go somewhat reluctantly. She couldn’t cuddle Wyatt like she could James, the boy was too busy and wriggling. But Castle started talking to James, carrying him away from her and she saw how his brand of distraction was much more effective than her own. James paid attention to his father, nodding seriously or looking where Castle pointed, engaging in a way that was different than what he’d done with her.</p><p>She might not have been feeding his pathetic unhappiness, but when she tried to help, all of that emotion seemed to override them both. Kate didn’t like dwelling on things, and apparently, neither did James - but they both couldn’t seem to help it. Castle and Wyatt, on the other hand, let everything roll right off them.</p><p>She watched as Castle found cereal and the last of the cut up banana, feeding them to James one by one. </p><p>Castle was good for them. Good for her, which was a nice side effect, but good for the boys. </p><p>That was important. That was right. They would have a good relationship, a special bond. He was their daddy - and a good man. He would make them good men too.</p><p>“Come on, beautiful boy,” she murmured to Wyatt. “Let’s find a change of clothes for your brother so we can head out.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate was upstairs with Wyatt, the boy wandering the room searching for something, apparently, because he was ducking to look under every obstacle in his way despite its size or the impossibility of something hiding underneath it.</p><p>She pulled clean clothes for both boys out of the plastic organizer, going for jeans and t-shirts since they were heading outside this afternoon, and was startled by the squeak Wyatt made. She turned quickly and found him running for her, and stepping through the baby gate was Colin Hunt.</p><p>She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been entirely alone with him.</p><p>Wyatt crashed into, but he was jabbering and carrying something in his arms that he was trying to show her. After a minute, she dragged her gaze from Colin to see what it was Wyatt had found. It had evidently caused his squeak - excitement not alarm.</p><p>James’s rag doll. Her heart flipped as she took it, and she cupped Wyatt’s face in her hands and kissed his mouth for it. “What a sweet boy,” she told him, fighting down the instinctive, stupid reaction she’d had towards Colin’s appearance. “Is this for your brother? We’ll take it downstairs to him. You’re so right.”</p><p>“Before you go,” Colin said, stepping forward as if doing obeisance for her favor. “Can we have a word?”</p><p>They were crew. His words. She nodded, combing her fingers through the flop of Wyatt’s hair, exactly like Castle’s.</p><p>“Look, I know you and him have this thing going, I get it. But we don’t have time to be doing all this domestic shit.”</p><p>She studied Wyatt’s face carefully as he held his brother’s rag doll. The boy had turned from her to push a car along the floor, squatting low but with one hand still clutching the ratty doll. A sweatshirt, all she’d had, and she could tell this was James’s because she’d used the cuffs of the sleeves.</p><p>It almost looked like an elephant, actually. She’d gotten the arms outsized, one tied bigger than the other. </p><p>“You hearing me, Beckett? Because this is important.”</p><p>“I hear you,” she said automatically. Wyatt pushed the red car towards the bed, made it disappear underneath.</p><p>“We’re setting the traps, as well we should, because no fucking asshole comes to my home and fucks with me and mine. And like Castle said, the boys are part of this crew as well, whether I like it or not, and seriously, don’t give me that face, I don’t hate them or anything. They’re fine. Better than most kids, and I don’t mind having nephews. What I’m saying is - I didn’t choose this. But fuck if you did either.”</p><p>She lifted an eyebrow as he seemed to only now come to that conclusion, and he waved her off to pace the floor.</p><p>Wyatt disappeared another car underneath the bed.</p><p>“Back to my point,” Colin muttered. He looked disgusted with himself. “We do the hunter, teach him a fucking lesson. But after that, we have to get moving on Eastman. This is more than just some fucking vengeance, there’s-”</p><p>“This is not vengeance. He did nothing wrong.”</p><p>Colin lifted both eyebrows.</p><p>“He was nice to me. Why don’t either of you seem to believe it?”</p><p>“Because he was in Black’s fucking employ. He didn’t stand for kindness, Kate. The idea that someone on his team was ever kind is a fucking joke.”</p><p>“He was,” she said stubbornly, feeling like Wyatt in her mute mulish arm-crossing. She might as well stamp her foot and cry. “He was, and I don’t care what you think, you’re not hurting him.”</p><p>“Regardless,” Colin growled, flinging himself forward as he paced. Wyatt scuttled away, darting behind her, but he grabbed another car and hurried towards the bed once more.</p><p>It disappeared too.</p><p>“Listen to me, Beckett. We have to get going after this hunter shit is done. And I need you to back my play.”</p><p>She startled, staring up at him. “What? Why?”</p><p>“We’re working on a deadline here. Multiple deadlines. You, for one, and how long you’re gonna be able to fucking keep it together before the side effects of the elixir jack you up.”</p><p>“How - how long?” she croaked.</p><p>“Fuck if I know,” he muttered. “I look like a doc to you? No, that’s Alex. And that little fucker is who I gunning for next. Now, won’t really kill him, but I can guarantee you I will make him think I will. For your sake, if nothing else. We have to get supplies from him, he has to tell us what’s been going on with you.”</p><p>“With me.”</p><p>“Your records are fucked up, Beckett. Surely you know that.”</p><p>“Castle said he could follow them, the notes Black made.”</p><p>“Yeah, he can follow, but he can’t fucking replicate that shit. Your levels and dosages were so fucking different. So Castle gave you an injection - which he shouldn’t have fucking done, apparently, but all we know is injections. But Alex and Ben, I guess, are getting infusions now, according to the damn notes, and so were you-”</p><p>“How come Castle hasn’t told me any of this?” she cried out.</p><p>Colin stopped pacing, turned and stared at her.</p><p>“Why hasn’t Castle told me this?” she growled.</p><p>“I’m sure he meant to. He just - that’s his m.o., Beckett. He just denies, denies, denies until shit falls on his head. I told him the projects was on-going, I told him there were huge facilities. I fucking told him Black was mass producing the damn elixir despite only two of us still needing it.”</p><p>Ben and Alex still needed it. And so did she, apparently.</p><p>“You said my records are fucked because - because it’s not what you expected of the elixir, right?’</p><p>Colin nodded shortly. Wyatt was poking another toy under the frame of the bed. </p><p>“So I’m managing it despite what should be happening to me? I should be dead, but I’m not.”</p><p>“Basically.”</p><p>“But I’ll need the elixir at some point - soon - and administered the way it has been, just so it won’t... heal me?”</p><p>“Healing is a product of the changed red blood cells in our systems. The idea that you have that too is bad. It’s very bad. Because you can’t fucking change those back.”</p><p>“Ah.” Kate closed her eyes, tilted her head back as she realized. “Castle thinks I’m stuck on the elixir, doesn’t he? For the rest of my life, I’m a slave to it.”</p><p>Colin’s jaw twitched, but he crossed his arms and even that small a movement had given him away.</p><p>“I’m not stuck,” she said finally. “Whatever is happening in my body - healing me in one fourth of the time it should have taken - there’s nothing wrong with being a little special. My boys are special. You and Castle are too. Why not join the party?”</p><p>Colin shuddered and drew a hand down his face. “It will eat holes in your brain. That’s what’s wrong. Over time, it warps more than just your blood cells. It warps the prions in your whole body, causing these holes to appear in your brain. Like fucking swiss cheese. What happened to Coon and his outfit. Why he was so fucking nuts.”</p><p>Kate sat perfectly still, stunned out of her own mind. Wyatt was shoving a block under the bed.</p><p>“Castle told you this, Beckett. I know he did.”</p><p>“He - might have. Must have. I just never... connected it like that.”</p><p>“So here’s the deal. You need a slow detox from this elixir. It’s like heroin - it alters your fucking brain chemistry, gotta be careful or it could kill you. But we don’t have elixir, do we? So the faster we get to Eastman, the faster we get what you need.”</p><p>“How faster?” she said, clearing her throat. </p><p>“I want on the road tonight. You convince Castle to pack a fucking bag and drive straight through after we set our traps.”</p><p>Kate reached out and tugged Wyatt’s shirt down his back, smoothing the wrinkles with her palm. “I see.”</p><p>“We got a deal?”</p><p>She needed the elixir. More than that, she needed to know what had happened to her. “It’s a deal.”</p><p>And then they shook on it.</p><p>-----</p><p>"What did you say to her?" Castle hissed at his brother. They were loading the last of the wolf traps into the back of the Jeep. "She's a fucking zombie."</p><p>"I just told her the truth," Colin muttered, shrugging him off. "Which you don't seem willing to do."</p><p>"Your truth and my truth are two widely different things." He slammed the back hatch of the Jeep and rounded on his brother. "Don't fucking talk to her-"</p><p>Colin punched him.</p><p>It wasn't hard - no, it was hard -  but it didn't do damage. He might have a bruise on his jaw while it healed - they had a tendency to bruise up really nice for an hour or so - but it was a reminder. It meant Colin was dropping him down a peg or two. And maybe Castle deserved it.</p><p>Colin paced away from him and came back. "I didn't fucking tell her to pack a bag and leave you, did I? That might be what I feel is most expedient, but I didn't tell her that." He growled and jammed a hand through his hair, yanked at the roots. "I told her to convince you to head for Eastman. You know we have to."</p><p>He knew. Maybe a punch to the jaw had been necessary. "I know. I know, damn it."</p><p>"So stop chasing smoke, and get your head in the game, Castle."</p><p>"It is." He worked his jaw. "Now."</p><p>Colin put his hands on his hips and they stood off against each other for a moment. Kate came out down the bridge, the door noisy, both boys chatty and making delighted sounds as she led them into the hazy afternoon.</p><p>When they had crossed the bridge and come down to the Jeep, Wyatt threw up both hands and cheered.</p><p>Everyone laughed, the tension breaking and the sun on their faces and warm. Castle leaned over to pick up Wyatt and put him in the car, and Kate came in close, her hand to his back.</p><p>"Did he punch you?" she said softly.</p><p>"I deserved it."</p><p>"You don't deserve it," she murmured, stroking up and down his spine. Her cheek came to lay against his shoulder while he strapped Wyatt into the seat. "You don't deserve it at all."</p><p>There was something sad in her voice that meant she was thinking of more than just a punch to the jaw. He made Wyatt secure and turned, caught the side of her face with a hand, fingers in her hair. "I did. And I know better. I can be better, Kate."</p><p>She bumped her body right into his, stepping so close that he had to wrap his arms around her. Colin was on the other side of the car strapping in James and it was just the two of them for a moment, the sunlight burning low in the sky, burning through the last of the day.</p><p>"I don't need you to be anything more than you already are," she said against his cheek. "I hope you know that."</p><p>He cradled the back of her head, his chest expanding and contracting with his every breath, her body moving in time to his.</p><p>"Did you - pack a bag?" he said finally, unable to find words for everything else.</p><p>"It's with yours in the foyer," she murmured. "James tried to play with your gun."</p><p>"Shit," he laughed, surprised. "It's not loaded, none of those are loaded, I swear."</p><p>"No, I know. It was just a scary moment, seeing him with his hand on it."</p><p>"No fucking kidding. We gotta be careful about them. They're smarter than you realize, but also - now that they've gotten some freedom - they're turning into actual toddlers."</p><p>She laughed back, leaning her cheek against his shoulder for a moment more. "Yeah. That's good though. At dinner the way they looked..."</p><p>"Hopefully those times will grow few and far between."</p><p>"You did good with them, you are good with them. I don't always know. I'm glad they have you, Castle. I never - thought I'd be able to see that, to say that their father was - good for them. It's-"</p><p>"Hush," he murmured, kissing her temple. "I understand. It's overwhelming."</p><p>She growled and shook her head against him, stepped back. "Let's go. It's time to go. Set your traps and then we'll drive to Connecticut."</p><p>He nodded and gestured her ahead of him into the backseat. She wedged her body between the two carseats, stopping him with a hand. She wasn't going to move back?</p><p>"You sit up front with your brother, glass jaw."</p><p>"It'll go away," he muttered, gingerly touching the hot place where Colin had punched him.</p><p>"You two need to talk. I'll probably fall asleep anyway, and at least their seats are propping me up."</p><p>He grumbled, but he obeyed, moving to the shotgun position beside his brother in the Jeep. </p><p>Colin had both eyebrows raised, but Castle saw there was a lot of bravado in it. He was wary too.</p><p>"Colin," he said carefully. He slammed the door after himself. "Time to fuck up a man's evening."</p><p>Colin laughed, and from the backseat, a little voice piped up: "Uck!"</p><p>"Oh, shit, Wyatt," Kate moaned.</p><p>Castle just laughed, somehow pleased his son had caught on to the important words.</p><p>-----</p><p>"Stay in the car," he told her.</p><p>"No," she retorted, already climbing out. Twilight had fallen by the time they'd arrived, and Colin had set out the traps in secret, avoiding a plethora of security devices, while they'd waited. She wasn't waiting any more. "Let the asshole see my children."</p><p>She was unbuckling Wyatt nearest the door, not looking at Castle, and after a moment, he must have agreed. Or he surrendered to her will. Castle removed the straps of the car seat and hoisted Wyatt out of it, receiving a babbling greeting in reply as Wyatt played with his lips to make cool sounds.</p><p>Kate turned to James and he gave her a shy smile, pleased with her, though she didn't quite know why. She kissed his forehead and removed his safety restraints too, pulled him into her arms. She had to maneuver around the baby seat to get down, Castle offering a hand to help, and then they were on the slick black driveway of the hunter who had laid wolf traps on their land.</p><p>"Uck!" Wyatt crowed.</p><p>"Ha," Castle said, a little satisfaction in his voice. He was going to be that kind of father, wasn't he? Proud of the least thing, proud maybe when he shouldn't be - farts and crude jokes and those stereotypical male behaviors that no civilized person wallowed in. Castle didn't either, not really, but he seemed to derive extreme satisfaction from these fledgling attempts the boys made to copy him.</p><p>Wyatt and his hero worship were kind of adorable, and Castle preened whenever Wyatt followed him around. He clearly loved it - loved the boys - and at least there was that. </p><p>No least about it. If her brain started to look like swiss cheese, these kids had a seriously capable father. A firm foundation. She wouldn't be wrecking their lives if something - ifit happened.</p><p>When it happened.</p><p>She didn't want to think like that, didn't want to go crazy and hurt Castle. More than she already had, nearly killing him-</p><p>Fuck. She was sane enough now but even that wasn't safe. She couldn't imagine what happened when she - if she - if the elixir couldn't be managed and she literally went insane.</p><p>"Mommy, me," James said against her neck. "Me, me."</p><p>"What about you, baby?" she said softly, pulling her thoughts away. Back to the job at hand. "Let's watch Daddy work."</p><p>"Daddy?" he queried, and it brought Castle's head around so that he stopped and waited for them.</p><p>Colin was at the front walk where he had already disabled the alarm system on the perimeter fence. The hunter in question had the same kind of set up as Colin and Castle - a fence, security, flood lights - but Colin hadn't even been troubled by it. Both men were wearing black cargo pants, though Colin's shirt was grey and nondescript, while Castle had gone with the black shirt as well. It made his neck look huge, which was a weird thought, maybe, but still true.</p><p>His neck looked rippling and massive. She'd never been interested in the football boys, the one who were nicknamed Refrigerator for how wide a blocker they were, or Tree because they were just that unmoving. She'd gone for the artsy boys with the eyeliner and Goth haircuts, the tattoos and motorcycles and skinny hips. They'd been putty in her hands, so damn grateful to have her touching them. That one guy her senior year with the Triumph motorcycle - he'd been the only one to put up any kind of resistance to her handling, and it had been a thrill, she remembered that clearly. How he had fought back in those subtle ways - not calling her, picking her up an hour late, sarcastic shit to her dad.</p><p>A thrill. Such a cheap thrill. Such a flash in the pan compared to this.</p><p>This man. Rick Castle and his thick neck and his clever brain and the wide grip of his hands when he held her as if to crush her but no killing blow would ever come. Not to her. To others maybe.</p><p>To this hunter.</p><p>Colin buzzed the door from the gate and then trotted up to stand with them in front of the door. There were two gaping-mouthed steel traps between them and the door, and a ring of traps set up around the entire house. That there had been enough for that kind of coverage made her cold with fury, and it wasn't her kids. She knew that some place inside her, she was retroactively horrified by the thought that they'd been playing all week in those woods, but mostly before her was the way that little wolf cub had keened.</p><p>Such terrible pain, and the fear - the livid, yowling fear. </p><p>She knew the woods were wild, she knew it was bound to happen in their lifetime, if only at the end. Animals were prey; she knew that.</p><p>But it had stayed with her. She felt it.</p><p>The door opened, a man in jeans and a plaid shirt, yelling back through the house to someone else, something about baloney and 'fuckwards'. When he turned his attention to them, she saw the hook of his nose and the thick salt-and-pepper mustache first, like those those two things were the only elements in the composition of his face.</p><p>"How the hell did you get past the gate?" And then his eyes dropped to the gleaming metal that seemed to stand on fire in the last of the sunlight. His face grew rigid.</p><p>"Mr. Deadwood," Castle said slowly. "Might ask you the same kind of thing. How the hell did you get past our posted signs? No. Fucking. Poaching."</p><p>Deadwood shifted on his feet. There was an immediate reaction from the brothers, both Colin and Castle drew weapons from holsters Kate hadn't even seen, primed, ready, reading his shift as reaching.</p><p>Deadwood held up both hands, slowly, though a wry coldness had dropped over his face. "Not looking for trouble, boys."</p><p>"Uck!" Wyatt shouted. He was still in Castle's arm, and the gun twitched at Castle's thigh but he didn't aim it.</p><p>"That's right," Castle said. "Fuck. Deadwood, you know why my son knows that word? Because I've said it so many fucking times since this morning when my wife nearly sprung your fucking trap. But she's smart, thank fuck, and she saw it before she ran into it, even though it clearly says no. Fucking. Poaching."</p><p>"I thought the place abandoned."</p><p>"Does it look abandoned?" Colin snapped. "Regular maintenance, a staff that goes in every fucking week."</p><p>Staff? Kate filed that away, wondered how much of that was bluster and lies, just like the story about 'his wife' going 'running' in the woods this morning.</p><p>"I ain't never seen nobody out there." Deadwood spit towards the ground, off to one side, but his eyes came back up slow and disrespectful.</p><p>Castle shifted on his feet. "We're out there. I don't appreciate having the sanctity of my retreat violated by your fucking death traps. But I can be neighborly. I've returned them to you."</p><p>Castle gestured and Deadwood's gaze found the rest of them, the steel traps, the rusted older models, every single one he'd ever laid - and he had probably been doing it for decades. "You bastard. You would begrudge a man a little extra meat? You with your cleaning staff and fucking castle in the woods. Some of us don't have the damn money for that kind of shit-"</p><p>A woman had come up behind him, haunting the hallway, but she caught sight of the traps in the yard and screeched. "What is this? What is this, Hal? What the hell-"</p><p>"Get back inside. Back inside, woman. Now go."</p><p>She left, still screeching, and he turned baleful eyes back to the men on his doorstep. Deadwood narrowed his gaze on Castle. "I have a right to eat."</p><p>"I have a right to fucking safety for my family. My kids play out there. Next time, Deadwood, I bury your traps in your own yard, your own driveway, your own house for you to step into them. Have you cut off your own leg. You hear me?"</p><p>Deadwood glanced between the two men. He seemed to be ignoring Kate altogether. "I go where I go. I wasn't on your land. I only get the new ones - those old ones are rusted out, hardly even got teeth. And what you boys gonna do? Beat the shit outta me? I'll call the cops. And something tells me you two don't want cops coming round."</p><p>Castle snarled and moved, but Kate stepped forward, a pick of ice between her eyes. Sharp. "The forest is off-limits to you," she said hollowly, her voice flat and dead. "You know the boundaries. If I ever see you. If you set one foot. If we come across each other in the woods one day and all you have is your shotgun, you'll wish they had beat you. You'll beg me." It was strange how the deadness crept darker and further with every word. "Not one step. Are we clear."</p><p>Deadwood's face was slack, but his lips moved as if speaking. He blinked, and seemed to rouse, but he still couldn't come up with words. Kate turned her back on him and walked back to the Jeep, carrying James in her arms, poor James, so heavy now, so tired, his body melting into hers.</p><p>-----</p><p>Colin snagged his brother before he could head back for the Jeep, knocking into his path and blocking him from Kate. "Did you feel that back there? Castle. Fuck, did you feel that?"</p><p>"Yeah, I felt that. She projects," Castle muttered. He felt ashen in the blood red sunset. "I didn't realize how much the elixir had changed her. I didn't think - I thought we had time-"</p><p>"No. No, it's not her. That wasn't her. That was your son."</p><p>Castle jerked to a stop, twisted hard to face his brother. Wyatt giggled in his arms, completely impervious to the fucking ice cold bath that had been back there.</p><p>Colin nodded. "Not Wyatt."</p><p>"I know not Wyatt. What the fuck do you mean - that was James projecting?"</p><p>"Well, I guess maybe it's more like... a mirror," Colin's voice went up in question as if he were asking Castle. Castle had no fucking idea.</p><p>"A mirror."</p><p>"I felt it in her, the moment she decided she was stepping up, that she wasn't having it anymore. A switch flipped. It was that sudden, that purposeful. I've never felt anyone do that before. Not even you. I just get senses usually, like when you're driving on the interstate and you know this guy wants in your lane, and sure enough he cuts you off."</p><p>"But it was clearer than that, that's what you're saying." Castle shifted his gaze just past the gate where the Jeep was parked. Kate had already gotten James in his seat. "I get it. I see what you mean. She pulled the trigger."</p><p>"And James blew up, automatic. Whatever it is he can do, he's been doing it. It's his only way to - to fight back, defend himself, and it's been so fucking necessary that it's a damn automatic response."</p><p>"James projected her, whatever it was she wanted to convey, whatever that feeling was - James was the one pushing it out there. And it fucking worked. Did you see what that guy did? He was fucking gone."</p><p>"No wonder they split them up. No wonder Black wanted them separated." Castle scraped a hand down his face, shifting Wyatt on his hip. "I'll tell her. I mean - I have to tell her, don't I? That James has learned how to - how to - push himself out onto other people. When he feels threatened."</p><p>"Yeah, but the question here isn't why - we know why. Fuck, do we know why he'd feel threatened. The question here is why it hadn't happened before. Why are we just now noticing this?"</p><p>"It has happened before," Castle muttered, tilting his head back to the deepening sky. "Shit. It happened before. With Wyatt. Today, remember? Wyatt fell and he looked like he wanted scream his head off, and then James was right there and Wyatt just - he just gulped it back. James did that all damn day to him until Kate showed up. Until it was safe."</p><p>"Hell," Colin croaked. "That kid is scary."</p><p>"He's not scary-"</p><p>"No, no, man, I mean in a good way. He's badass. I mean seriously. That is one badass little baby." Colin turned back to him and leaned in over Wyatt, shook his little fist. "Wyatt, little bro, you are the littler one you know, what's your super power, kid?"</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate crawled over the seat and into the back, strangely relieved to be alone back here. The boys were eating snacks Castle had packed - he was seriously prepared in ways she hadn't even begun to think about - and Castle and Colin were arguing over the map.<br/>She had the backseat to herself, and for first time since this morning, she was alone. </p><p>Okay, not truly alone, with Wyatt in the seat ahead of her popping out with, "Mommy!" just because he could. He would giggle to himself, and cackle even harder if she showed up in his field of vision, so she had stopped jerking to attention every time called her name.</p><p>It was kind of sweet though. In a way. Annoying, but sweet. Much like his father.</p><p>She laid down on the seat and let her eyes close, realized she really was so tired. Her body sank into the material, forming to the bench, her brain beginning to shut off, one system at a time. Thoughts of the boys were last to go, as they always were, specifically James and the thing he could do.</p><p>His super power, Colin had said. Cheeky and bright, like it wasn't entirely insane for a little boy to be able to force his will onto other people. She had seen it before; she just hadn't known. And had she taught him that? Because early, that first year she'd been Black's pet, she'd been in training and she had cultivated that coldness deep inside her, that icy core that exuded out to every encounter. She couldn't be moved, she hadn't been touchable.</p><p>"Mommy!" Giggling and snorting in his cereal snack.</p><p>She lifted her hand and brushed the top of Wyatt's head over the car seat, and he laughed harder. She dropped her hand back down, curled into the seat again.</p><p>She was sure she had taught him. That it worked, at least, that protecting yourself was invaluable in that facility. And then that night the nurse had tried to take him from her and she had said you have no right  and the coldness had leached out from her whole body just like today. The nurse had tried to take him and it was her time, she was still nursing him and that had been the deal, she got to hold them at night, have them, and the nurse had stumbled back.</p><p>And been replaced the next day. Gone. Had Black known about what James could do?</p><p>Terror washed hotly through her, just that fast, but then once more, like a flood, came the relief of his blood spattering her face, his scream as she'd dug in his eye socket with her scalpel. Hacking at his neck. She had done that, and the relief was vivid and pure and cooling. Even if Black had known, he was dead.</p><p>"Mommy!" </p><p>Castle, from the front, "Let Mommy sleep, little hyena. Giggle to yourself."</p><p>Black no longer mattered. But others. They might have known. Might know, right now, about her sons. They might not be safe.</p><p>It wasn't just the attachment and connection, it was all of their super powers. Healing, the blood, not needing sleep, the endurance and stamina, all of it. Someone out there might know exactly what Black had been doing and just how far he had come, and they would be looking.</p><p>They would be searching.</p><p>She was glad, now, that Colin had confronted her upstairs at home. So grateful. Because she hadn't been seeing this clearly. She hadn't been paying attention.</p><p>She was now. She was on it. No one was going to hurt her sons.</p><p>If she had to lay wolf traps at their door.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They stopped halfway across the state at a visitors' center in a national park, the darkness so absolute that the stars were a haze of white, the Milky Way on display over her head. </p><p>Kate carried James, the tired one, intending to nurse him first while Castle changed Wyatt's diaper. The place was so dark and she found her eyes darting to the only other car in the parking lot - a rusted out gold Civic whose driver smoked a cigarette in the darkness behind the wheel. The glow of the burning butt flared brightly and she averted her eyes.</p><p>Three parking lot lamps were dark. Two illuminated the rest of the sprawling visitors' center, one on the vending machines, and one at the far end of the lot. Colin had chosen to park in the middle darkness, close to the light but not close to the building, and the walk seemed long. </p><p>"Might stock up from the vending machines," Castle said. His voice in the difficult light was smudged, as if blurred by the echo of so much space. </p><p>"Good idea."</p><p>Snacks were being kept in reserve for the latter half of the trip, but the boys hadn't put up a fuss for more. She was beginning to realize just how remarkable their easy-going natures were. How strange that they kept quiet in their car seats and watched the landscape go by, speaking only when directly engaged, as if they'd already learned that children were to be seen and not heard.</p><p>She was disheartened, but Castle's relentless optimism was hard not to catch. The boys could be loosened up, the damage wasn't permanent, kids were elastic. She wanted to believe, and maybe that was all that mattered.</p><p>"Hey, they have family restrooms," Castle said, opening the door for her to the little glass house. Brochures lined the left hand wall, a video displayed state facts on a loop, while the right hand side held public bathrooms. Between the men's and women's restrooms was a door marked with a stick figure family.</p><p>"Does that mean we both go in?" She hadn't seen this before.</p><p>"Yeah, we can all go in together. Officially. I'd have gone in with you anyway, because I don't like the look of this place, but at least now I won't be arrested for it."</p><p>She gave him a laugh because he'd tried, and it had helped, actually, the joke and smirk of his lips. It had helped and he was here, and they were both trained. She really was capable; sometimes it was difficult to remember that she had agency now, that she wasn't in that cage any longer, that she could choose differently if she wanted to.</p><p>She could have told Colin, no, I don't want to stop here; let's keep driving.</p><p>It just hadn't occurred to her. </p><p>"Do you want me to change them both and then entertain Wyatt while you nurse James? Or just wait and switch off?"</p><p>"Wait and switch off," she answered. She had made that decision easily enough. "He's so tired that I don't think he's even noticed his diaper."</p><p>"Good point," Castle said quietly. The visitors' center was startling in its emptiness, as if it required some kind of reverence from them for opening its doors. "Wyatt, you and me, kid. Let's change this diaper."</p><p>He set Wyatt up on the changing station and Kate watched a moment, the boy heavy in her arms, already half asleep. It was almost nine o'clock, and she supposed they ought to be on some kind of schedule, but maybe when things settled out. If they ever would.</p><p>Castle was so natural at all of this. He might not have known any more about diaper changing than she had, but the whole world seemed intuitive to Castle. Like if he just applied himself, he could unlock the secrets of the universe.</p><p>She settled into the molded plastic seat and shifted a hand under her shirt, peeled down the cup of her bra. James wriggled in close to her and turned his mouth to her nipple, latched on with that content little sigh that made her heart flip. Every time.</p><p>She sank back into the seat, her body relaxing as James nursed. She hadn't realized how edgy she'd been until now. </p><p>James was half-hidden by the fall of her shirt, and she reached down and adjusted the material so that she could see him, so that he wasn't at all obscured from her, nor her from him, and he grinned around her breast and the milk pooled in the corners of his mouth.</p><p>"Eat, little ghost," she murmured. She'd called him that when he was inside her, growing, ghost and parasite both, depending on how charitable she'd been feeling, and now he squirmed with pleasure at the familiar name. More familiar than his own name, because she'd kept that most secret, and ghost and parasite were all she'd spoken aloud for so long.</p><p>She wasn't sorry for it, but it was another weight added to the rest of it. This whole damn day had been one load after another, heavy weights, sorrows she carried like a pack lashed to her back. </p><p>Ha. Well, it was called emotional baggage for a reason, right?</p><p>"Just a few hundred pounds," she murmured down to James. He smiled shyly again, squirming as they made eye contact, and she recalled once more how much he felt of her, how much she transmitted to him - and him to her too. "Are you happy, baby? Could you share it a little, maybe?"</p><p>She smiled ruefully, aware that she didn't exactly want her son to feel responsible for her happiness. Aware that she wasn't necessarily unhappy either, just so very tired. She was just so tried. It would be easier to lay her head down right here and just not get up. Castle would carry away the boys and she would stay, sinking down into the changing table, the darkness of the night and the absolute silence echoing in her head.</p><p>James came off her breast and flicked his fingers urgently against her skin, so she switched sides, fumbling with the cup until she got everything situated. He sighed deeply as he dragged at her nipple, and she grunted as a tooth caught her, her breasts far more sensitive and raw than she'd realized.</p><p>Lotion or something. She should remember to ask. Or find something, scrounge something at the house. Her nipples were chafed, and maybe James hadn't been able to nurse well. Maybe-</p><p>Oh. She laughed softly and skimmed her finger along his nose, but he was asleep. He had only been tired, not unhappy, not unable to nurse. Just tired. And he had wanted to be close to her, the warmth of her skin and - oh, yes, that too - her heartbeat on this side. Sweet baby. He just wanted her.</p><p>"Castle," she whispered.</p><p>"You ready for the next one?" he said, but he lowered his voice as he turned and saw her. "He asleep?"</p><p>"Mm-hm." She shifted very slightly and didn't know how to give him up, a little helpless shrug of her shoulders. "Will you just hold him?"</p><p>"Of course, honey." He lowered Wyatt to the tile floor and the boy lurched to her, hanging on to her knee. Castle gently took James from her and cradled the boy's head like a newborn, easing the baby against his chest. "He's wet though. I'll change his diaper. I'll be careful, go slowly."</p><p>She nodded, leaning down to pick up Wyatt though her eyes strayed to James once more.</p><p>"Mommy," Wyatt said pitifully. Wanting her attention.</p><p>"Yes, I'm here," she murmured, returning her gaze to him. "I'm here. Your turn now." She adjusted him right under her heart, and he nursed with a strong pull, both hands on her breast as if to hold her there. She stroked a finger around his soft little ear, her thumb at his neck, playing with him as he liked to do with her when he was full.</p><p>Even nursing, the boys had different personalities, and she responded to them in kind. Strange how she hadn't quite realized that before. James wanted to cuddle, to feel safe and warm, and Wyatt wanted attention, interaction, her smile on him. </p><p>Wyatt nursed, and she kept her eyes fixed to his, giving him what he needed from her, even though she was aware of how Castle moved, where he was, how he was handling the sleeping James as he attempted to change his diaper. She heard the boy give a startled cry, woken from sleep to a man looming over him, and that hurt, it did, but then she heard his little gasping daddy and it made her heart flutter. He was comforted, he was okay, it was just his daddy.</p><p>She smoothed her thumb over Wyatt's neck, smiling to herself when she fished out a crumb. "Saving some for later," she murmured at him. But his eyes were closing, struggling as he was to hang on to their connection, his smile loose and his nursing coming in fits and starts. She hummed in her chest, the song she didn't sing, despite what Castle said, though she knew what it was she was humming, the same thing her mother had sung to her softly in the dark, just into her ear because she said she couldn't carry a tune.</p><p>But Kate could sing. Her father's voice was - had been - rich with range, and Kate had learned to read music for guitar, had sung with him on road trips while their mother rolled her eyes at their choices. Trips upstate to visit her much older cousins, and how it had been the Becketts against the Houghtons, her mother's family haughty and distant but obligatory. She had always felt like she and her father were on one side and the rest...</p><p>She could sing, but she hadn't. She didn't know why. But she had hummed, and now that's what she did, waiting for Wyatt to finally let go.</p><p>"He's asleep again," Castle said softly, coming to sit beside her in the next chair over. He had James up against his chest, a hand curled protectively at the back of the boy's head. "It scared him - I scared him - but I think he realized it was just me."</p><p>"He did," she said, shifting until she could lean her shoulder to his. "He knew it was you."</p><p>Beside her, Castle let out a sigh. "That's good."</p><p>"This one is just about done," she told him, though it wasn't true. Not really. Wyatt was already asleep, nursing long since fallen off, but Kate couldn't bear the thought of standing up and adjusting her shirt and walking back through that parking lot. Facing the darkness, the unknown man in his car smoking his cigarette. Putting the boys in their carseats where she couldn't touch them or see them or hold them while they slept.</p><p>"You tired?" he murmured.</p><p>"God," she croaked. Her hands would be shaking if she wasn't holding Wyatt. "So tired."</p><p>"Lean against me. I'll hold you up until you're done."</p><p>She did; she couldn't resist it. The lure of him. And it was only when she had laid her cheek to the top of his shoulder and closed her eyes that she realized he knew she was delaying the inevitable.</p><p>Until you're done, he'd said. Not until James was done. Her.</p><p>He knew. He knew and he was very tactfully not mentioning it. Giving her the chance to hide here in a bathroom with him until she could face it again.</p><p>She thought she might love him for that.</p><p>-----</p><p> </p><p>-----</p><p>“We’re here,” he whispered, stroking. Stroking. “Kate, honey, we’re here.”<br/>She jerked awake, insensate and disoriented, but after a stopped heartbeat, she saw Castle’s face above her. “Here,” she croaked, echoing the last thing she’d heard.</p><p>“We’re here.”</p><p>She jerked upright, crashing her skull into his so that she gasped. Pain bounced around inside her bones, but Castle caught her. He had crawled into the backseat with her, the car was stopped, the boys were munching on something in the middle seat. She couldn’t see them, just hear them. Wyatt hummed around his food.</p><p>“Where’s Colin?” she got out.</p><p>“Phase One,” Castle said, grinning at her as he helped her sit upright. He settled in beside her and leaned back, sliding his arm around her shoulder. “He’s doing long recon on the property, looking for a house, traps, tricks. He’ll bring back the intel in exactly-” Castle paused to check his watch and her heart flipped strangely. “-forty three minutes.”</p><p>She nodded, easing down beside him now and laying her head on his shoulder. She felt drugged and funny, a weird taste in her mouth, a restlessness behind her eyes.</p><p>“James okay?” she murmured.</p><p>“He’s still asleep. Has been since you sacked out.”</p><p>“I wonder if it’s related,” she sighed. His fingers stroked up and down the outside of her shoulder, soothing.</p><p>“We can test stuff out. And the more words he acquires, hopefully the more he can tell us.”</p><p>She nodded against him, curled up and warm with Castle’s heat against her. She laid her arm against his chest and rubbed the back of his neck with her fingers, mimicking the rhythm of his own touches.</p><p>“Tell me...” she started, trailing off as lethargy stole over her again.</p><p>“Tell you what?” he whispered.</p><p>“Mm, just. Distract me. I don’t want to worry about James. Nothing I can do right now.”</p><p>“Distract you?” he said, his words barely even a breath.</p><p>She had meant for him to tell her a story, explain in detail some other event she’d missed, but the way he shifted beside her, the tension of his shoulders under her, she realized he was aroused.</p><p>Had been. How long had he been wanting her? “Castle,” she said slowly.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Were you watching me sleep?”</p><p>“Um. A little bit.”</p><p>“Were you thinking dirty thought about me while I was asleep?”</p><p>Silence.</p><p>She did a very good job suppressing her laughter - it was only girlish delight - and she tapped his chin with her finger, glancing up at him. “You were. While I was unconscious, you were thinking about fucking me.”</p><p>“Hell,” he groaned.</p><p>“In your daydream, honey, was I awake or were you touching me in my sleep?”</p><p>“Oh, God,” he moaned, turning his face into her. He was clinging to her, and she really fucking liked it. </p><p>She kissed his cheek. “Want to play pretend? I can lie down and close my eyes and you can touch me wherever you want to. I won’t look.”</p><p>“Oh, God,” he groaned. He sounded undone.</p><p>She tugged on the collar of his shirt and wriggled out of his grasp, lowering herself to the seat once more. She drew a leg up to throw over his lap, her other leg bent at the knee and braced against the seatback. It made her rather open to him like this.</p><p>She closed her eyes.</p><p>Castle came down on top of her and she groaned, enjoying the sensation against her breasts. Heavy and forbidden. </p><p>She thought he would kiss her ‘awake’ but he didn’t do that at all. Instead he dragged the zipper down on her jeans and slipped his fingers inside her pants. </p><p>Kate choked on a cry and he smothered it with his mouth. He scraped a finger over the material of her panties, and she strained her eyes to see through the darkness behind her closed lids. She felt heavy and weighed down, powerful but also subjugated.</p><p>He hadn’t said a word. </p><p>His fingers hooked in the crotch of her underwear and tugged it aside. He was soon stroking through her folds, the wetness so thick she could hear herself in the quiet interior of the car. </p><p>He was finger-fucking her now, pressing inside her and up - oh, up - up against that fleshy wall that made her legs quiver and her lungs bark. </p><p>Not a word. Nothing spoken. He was hard and dark and silent above her, she was being pressed fiercely into the seat by the weight of him. She was tight thrusts of her hips and the building urgency of his fingers hitting her in places she’d only just discovered, deep and deeper, thicker, two fingers moving easily in her slickness.</p><p>She had to come. She needed to come. He had to make her come, for the love of-</p><p>“Oh,” she gasped, jerking into his touch. “You-”</p><p>She didn’t even know what she’d been about to say, only that fertile richness swept over her and stayed that way, churning her up, an unending flood of feeling.</p><p>And only when his hand was still and lying over her stomach on top of her pants, only when his lips were dusting soft breathing kisses against her nose and cheeks did she realize she was crying.</p><p>-----</p><p>“Good cry or bad cry?” he whispered, kissing under her cheek. His lips came away wet.</p><p>“I don’t know,” she mewled, wrapping her arm around his neck and pulling him back down over her. “I don’t know but I love - love when you make me come.”</p><p>His stupid little heart had tripped over that word even as she’d stuttered, but he’d take it. He kissed her other cheek and sucked lightly at her skin; she shivered and arched into him.</p><p>“If you’re quiet,” she said, a little breathless. “Come on, baby, you said forty-three minutes.”</p><p>“Kate,” he laughed softly, dipping his forehead to hers. She rubbed her body against his in that artless, erotic way. He was immediately throbbing, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t been hard the whole time he’d been imagining it. This. Imagining the moment he would reach out and tug lightly at her zipper and touch her.</p><p>“Castle, get moving, stop wasting time,” she husked. Her mouth moved over his jaw and down his throat and she was already working at the button of his jeans.</p><p>“Little cramped in here, sweetheart,” he mumbled. Though he found he couldn’t move to stop her, just the fumble at his pants was working him up.</p><p>“You can do it. I have faith in you. Seem to always do the impossible.”</p><p>He huffed, forehead dropping to hers, his hand going still on her hip. “As much as I appreciate-”</p><p>“Here we are,” she purred, the moment her fingers wrapped around his boxer-clad erection. “You should just go commando, Commando. It fits, and it would save us a lot of time. Oh, wait. Ooh, Castle, there’s a slit.”</p><p>He grunted in amusement, wincing as she eagerly dove inside, her hips bumping up into him. He was twisted into an awkward position in the backseat, feet on the floor, but it looked like she was serious about this. He was going to have to figure this out.</p><p>“Oh,” she sighed softly. “Doesn’t that feel good?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he groaned into her chest. “Feels - really good. I - missed you.”</p><p>“Missed you too,” she whispered in his ear. “Miss you inside me, love. Can you just - push inside me?”</p><p>“Do my very best,” he murmured, voice catching as her wrist twisted. “Ah, hell. That. That’s good. Kate. That’s - maybe too good.”</p><p>“Don’t come yet,” she breathed into his ear. “Save it for me, love.”</p><p>“You - are - making it impossible,” he hissed.</p><p>“Rock your hips into me.”</p><p>“I - can’t - pants are tangled. Damn it.” He had to lift up and torque his body, one knee on the floor to stabilize himself, and then he couldn’t quite reach her, and it was not working. “This is - ridiculous. Kate. Get over here.” He reached out and grabbed her by the hips, dragged her to the edge of the seat. “Sit up. Wrap your legs around me. Wait, actually, one leg around my hips, the other-” He arranged her as he spoke, rubbing one palm up and down the inside of her thigh in reward. “Here we go, love. Let’s try this.”</p><p>Castle lifted her left leg to his shoulder, eased her up until her knee hooked over him and her heel dug into his spine. She was trembling, staring down at him from between her lewdly spread legs.</p><p>“How’s that?” he said. </p><p>“Oh, God,” she moaned.</p><p>“Hush, honey. Keep quiet as long as you can.”</p><p>“I don’t know if I can,” she mewled. She was spread out in front of him as knelt on the floorboard of the backseat, and she pressing in tighter to him, wanting that connection, but he held her off a moment longer.</p><p>“You look beautiful. On display for me.”</p><p>She shuddered and her hips arced, one fist pressing into the seat. She was canted into him, seeking him, but he rubbed both palms against her thighs and belly, brought his touch down to her sex.</p><p>Kate mewled, her lips pressed together, the sound echoing in her chest. He was lined up perfectly for this, she was twisted around him, the back of her thigh pressed to his chest so that the friction was delicious.</p><p>“Castle,” she husked. “Touch me. Fuck me.”</p><p>He peeled apart her soaking wet sex with his thumbs; her arousal gushed out even as she panted. His cock was trembling and bobbing against his stomach, and he had to angle himself towards her.</p><p>“Oh, yes,” she whined. “Oh, please. Oh, please, I need you.”</p><p>He relished his entry. The wet, hot mouth of her body accepting him, working at him, pushing and pulling to that natural rhythm. He rubbed her thigh that was thrown over his shoulder, up and down in the same pulse, making his palm tingle with each stroke.</p><p>Kate groaned. She strained to reach for him, her fingers curling to touch him, but he lifted his hand from her hip to her sternum, pushed her back to give him the room he needed.</p><p>And then he thrust.</p><p>She gasped, arching, but he had a grip on her thigh and his palm planted against her chest and he kept his seat inside her. She began to writhe against him, hips jerking and urgent, so he used his thumb against her nipple and attacked her pleasure. He forced out her orgasm before she could catch her breath, and just as it had done before, her next one came fast on its heels, tighter and more terrible than the first, catching her off-guard.</p><p>His thrusts were shallow but deep, and he could feel himself bottoming out, feel the way her body contracted hard around him when he did. He leaned in close, their groins pressed tight, and he began to simply rock his hips, swiveling so she’d feel full. Skewered. </p><p>Fucked.</p><p>She moaned into the air, soft and wet moans, and he bent back her leg a little more and fucked her harder.</p><p>Kate stiffened and snapped apart, her orgasm silent and brutal. So brutal it ripped his own climax out of his balls, his body rigid as he pressed into her, the last dirty thrusts, uncontrolled and urgent.</p><p>And then they fell apart, sweat-slicked and sex-sated, her leg dropping to the seat and his head landing on her inside thigh as he tried to breathe, limp and drugged with it.</p><p>Her hand fell to the back of his head. Her fingers curled and stroked in his hair. They were both silent.</p><p>-----</p><p>Yeah, that was good. That was really good. She was gonna add that to her mental list of things she wanted to repeat: her leg up around his shoulder. Both legs? Yeah, on a bed, that would work. And then that feeling, that angle that just...</p><p>Fuck, that was good. That was so good.</p><p>"Thanks, baby," he mumbled against her thigh. She twitched and laughed, tickled by the brush of his lips and the scruff of his cheek. "You're pretty damn good yourself."</p><p>She huffed and tried not to be so stunned and wowed by him, but she didn't entirely care. Somewhat care. But he knew he was good, so what did it matter? She couldn't even remember him tugging off her jeans and panties but it had happened, somewhere along the way. She was bare-ass against the back seat and at least one boy was awake up there, thank God not the sensitive one, but Colin could return at any second and she couldn't close her legs.</p><p>"Castle," she mumbled, and her thighs squeezed around his head when he hummed his question into her skin. "Castle, oh, hell." She was tingling again, and as the blood rushed and her heart thudded, it made her realize how sore she was.</p><p>"I know," he sighed. "I know, time to go. I really love this view though-"</p><p>She slapped at his back, laughing a little, trying to struggle upright. He was smiling, the bastard, and placing little kisses on her inside thigh, her knee, as he shifted his weight. He was the one who found her panties on the floorboard, and he dropped them in her lap, and then he maneuvered his body next to hers on the seat.</p><p>She couldn't help watching him yank up his boxer briefs, noting how rough he was with it, how he adjusted himself to the right. She wondered if that was a thing all men did, or just Castle because of his size. Or because of the tight fit of those grey briefs. She really liked that-</p><p>"You gotta stop staring at it, Kate, honey, or it will come alive."</p><p>"The Thing," she hummed, lifting her eyes to meet his. His lips quirked, but he was glaring at her for it, and she laughed a little, tried to draw a knee up to put a foot through her panties. </p><p>It was slow-going with him crowding her for maneuvering space. He only had to tug up his pants and button them, but she had to arrange long limbs into pant legs and it was getting to be impossible.</p><p>"Scoot over, Castle," she muttered, elbowing him. "You take up all the room."</p><p>"Here, try this," he answered, shifting his body to one end of the seat and dragging her back against his chest. She grumbled as she fell into him, but she could stretch out her legs a little more and now the work of wrestling up her pants was a lot easier.</p><p>And then Castle reached around from behind to circle his arms around her, arresting her movement, trapping her hands with his. She took a long breath, turned on again by the eroticized embrace of him, but he merely worked his fingers under the waist of her jeans and worked them up her thighs.</p><p>"Lift your hips, baby."</p><p>She complied almost before he finished his instruction, her body responding automatically to the tone of his voice in her ear. He'd conditioned her to him, and she knew it, but it made their every touch sexual and sensual, and she didn't mind that at all.</p><p>He buttoned her jeans, rubbed his fingers against the skin below her belly button. His other hand slowly worked her zipper, sending pulses of electricity through her as he dressed her. When it was done, he framed her with his hands, thumbs tucked under the waistband at her hip bones, fingers meeting at her spine. His mouth came to her neck and kissed her, making love to her skin with wet sounds, nips of teeth and sucking marks.</p><p>She was buoyed on the wave of his attention, letting it wash over her, hips bumping up into the control of his firm hands. There was no orgasm, just a constant stream of sensation swirling inside her, so that her body contracted and released, a rhythm as steady and pervasive as a heartbeat.</p><p>His mouth against her collarbone, the top of her shoulder, his nose pushing aside the cotton of her shirt, another kiss like a sigh at the slope of her back. </p><p>And then his fingers released their pressure and his hands dragged up her body and squeezed her shoulders, and he sat back.</p><p>She turned into his chest, pulling her knees up, hiding her face and its tears in his shirt. He held her, positioning her in his lap like a child, and she cried and didn't know why she cried while he asked nothing, said nothing, simply cradled the back of her head and took it.</p><p>-----</p><p>He wasn't sure about the tears, but he had decided that from now on, he would stop asking and trust his instincts. They'd steered him correctly so far, and there really was a difference between the kind she wanted him gone for, and the kind she needed him around for.</p><p>She actually fell back to sleep for a few minutes, a kind of doze while he simply held her in his lap, her body slack as if it had just given up and quit. He continued to comb through her hair, detangling the snags at the back of her neck where he thought James was knotting it with his fingers when he needed her. He understood the attraction. He envied the boy's regular access to lay his head on her chest and twirl.</p><p>She woke in stages, as if being dragged out of unconsciousness in pieces. First her eyes opened, staring sightless, and if he hadn't seen it happen before, it would have scared him. As it was, he didn't like it, how she could be here but not here at all.</p><p>He cupped the back of her neck and rubbed his thumb under her eye until she was looking at him, looking and actually seeing. And something eased in her. Like standing down. Her body began to engage, tension coiling her muscles and giving her form those hard angles once more. With him.</p><p>And then she moved, shifting to sit on her own in the seat beside him, letting a foot drop to the floor. But her cheek came to his shoulder and her arm twined through his. And the tears were gone.</p><p>She took his wrist and turned his forearm to check the time, made a noise in her throat.</p><p>"Soon," he agreed. The quiet in the car was nice, soothing almost, and he realized it had begun to drizzle. He felt badly for Colin out there, but his brother was used to it, and it had to be done - every element was necessary. They'd both been trained for it.</p><p>"Mm, raining," she hummed. "Both asleep?"</p><p>"Ah, good point," he whispered. "Maybe so."</p><p>"I'll check," she murmured, though it seemed she slogged forward with only great effort. Kate leaned on the back of the middle seat, her arm thrown over so she could reach the boys. He could see her face soften, the movement of her arm as if she was stroking the hair back from Wyatt's face. He'd seen her do it often now, and he'd been on the receiving end as well.</p><p>God, he loved it. He loved her. It hit him in a rush, and he had to stay perfectly still so as not to topple the carefully constructed wall of self-restraint. </p><p>Kate came back to lean against him, that sweet-soaked smile flirting with her lips, the way her eyes shone, the curl of her body into his side, snuggling. The boys made her soft, her love of them made her share that love with him, and for a moment, he could delude himself into thinking she did so openly, without reservations.</p><p>He knew she did, but he also knew she had no idea what to do with it. She might not even know she did, honestly, and it would take patience and time. All he could do. Love her and know that when she cried into his shirt, or when she came running to him for help with a trapped wolf, or when she yelled at him because she felt safe enough - if he just kept in mind that he had the power to call her back to herself, that she pressed her cheek to his in that same way she showed the boys her all-encompassing love for them - if he held on to those things, if he kept them constantly before him, then he could give her time, give her patience.</p><p>She made love to him when they fucked; she made love. He didn't doubt that. How could he? He felt it spill out of her and into himself, he felt it filling him up, no projection needed.</p><p>"Oh, here's Colin," she murmured, and didn't bother straightening up. Sure enough, Colin was slinking through the mist and tapping twice on the door for entry. </p><p>Castle unlocked the Jeep with his remote and Colin opened the driver's side, slid in behind the wheel wiping the hair out of his eyes and flinging off water. He turned and looked at them, rolled his eyes at Castle (it might possibly smell like sex in here), and then he glanced to the boys.</p><p>"They're sacked out."</p><p>Kate shifted forward again, resting her chin on the back of the seat, her fingers in James's hair now. Castle sat up as well, nodded to his brother to give a situational report.</p><p>"House on the acreage, like we thought. Old farmhouse, front and back porch with screen and storm doors. Eighteen windows - ten up, eight below. Cellar with outside access, attached to the house. Shed and barn. Barn houses a horse and a cow, though the cow was in pasture. A dog that has the run of the place. She called him Beau. Ugly old mutt. Slow as shit, but not dumb. The dog, not the woman."</p><p>Kate chuckled, a lift of her eyebrows to Colin. Damn, she was in a good mood now. Easy. No direct hits, and Castle would have said for sure that last comment would've gotten to her.</p><p>He'd seen it before, what sex did for her, but hell, they'd only had two days. Two days. But he was learning. An orgasm to take the edge off, but it was truly the one-to-one connection she needed, like a touchstone, to reorient her system again. Fucking her. His cock inside her sex. That was the thing that made it last, that gave her the greatest reward. Like a reset button was buried high and tight inside her.</p><p>He was remembering this. He would definitely remember this. It didn't pain him at all to help press that reset button.</p><p>"I never saw Eastman, but that's not unheard of. He's got a job that travels, I'm assuming, and it's possible this woman is a vet or farmer - she had that way of walking the land, the animals came to her at the fence, there were turkeys and chickens too. We could be sitting here a long time before something breaks."</p><p>"We'll sit on the place until she leaves the property," Kate said. "At some point she'd need groceries, a prescription filled, something."</p><p>"And if not," Castle said, "we can engineer that kind of thing."</p><p>Kate glanced at him, a frown of curiosity creasing her forehead. "How?"</p><p>"Horse gets sick; she'd have to get the vet, or she is the vet and she'd need to fill a script. Or the tractor breaks down. Or - all kinds of things could draw her into town, Kate. Just a matter of finding the right button to push."</p><p>"Oh," she said, her eyes traveling to gaze somewhere past his shoulder. And then she came back. "No animals."</p><p>He blinked and then realized. "Okay. No animals."</p><p>"Or, hell," she croaked, "no, people."</p><p>Castle glanced past her to his brother, but Colin lifted both hands as if to say she's your problem.</p><p>"All right, Kate. No people."</p><p>"Okay," she said, nodding to him. "Okay. So we wait for her to move or him to show."</p><p>"Yes. Now we wait."</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate had watched in fascination as Colin had unloaded the equipment from the trunk and then disappeared back through the woods towards the Eastman property, his hair silver with mist. Castle had crawled back up to the front seat and was adjusting a rack of five-inch monitors, three across, two high, which slowly began to move from snow to focus.</p><p>And now they had picture. </p><p>“Here’s the front porch,” Castle murmured, pointing to the top right monitor. It was barely bigger than a dessert plate, and in black and white, but it gave a sharp display of the farmhouse. “And here’s the back. Waiting for the access road.”</p><p>Kate realized he was giving her a running commentary while he was also talking to Colin via a microphone clipped to his shirt collar. When Castle snorted without another word, she figured Colin was talking back to him via the receiver she saw now in his ear.</p><p>“Is this what you guys did before hitting the facility?” </p><p>Castle glanced back at her, and then swiveled his head to the last monitor, which was filled with static. “No, Col. Try unplugging it, plugging it back in.” The monitor went back to snow and Castle turned again to her. “Yeah. This is our usual m.o. - surveillance for twenty-four to forty-eight and then plan our attack based on the intel. With your place, it went faster than that because Colin had done most of the surveillance himself.”</p><p>“It’s not mine,” she said.</p><p>Castle blinked, opened his mouth as if he was going to apologize, and then his head snapped back to the monitors at some unheard request from Colin. “Yeah. Yes. I’ve got it now. All six are up. Come on back.”</p><p>He turned again to her; she was sitting between the boys’ seats, feeling both strangely protected and simultaneously crushed. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said. “Not yours. No. I know that.”</p><p>“No, don’t - that’s stupid of me. What does it matter.”</p><p>“It matters.”</p><p>She shrugged and leaned her head back, but she watched the monitors until she saw Colin hoofing it back through the mist for the Jeep. Castle unlocked it again and let him slide behind the wheel, and then it was just the quiet of the car and the boys asleep and the whisper of mist on the windshield.</p><p>Finally Kate sighed. “Is it always like this?”</p><p>Colin laughed. “Mostly.”</p><p>“This might take a while, huh?”</p><p>Castle snorted. “I did tell you to pack a bag.”</p><p>“Yeah, but you didn’t say to pack the boys a bag.”</p><p>Castle and Colin looked dumbfoundedly at each other. </p><p>“Shit,” Colin muttered.</p><p>“Fuck,” Castle sighed.</p><p>“Uck,” Wyatt murmured in his sleep.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle had to get out and stretch his legs, cramped from sitting, (actually, he was really cramped from fucking in the back seat, but he hadn’t told Colin that), and when he turned around, Kate was crawling out of the back and coming with him.</p><p>Colin leaned out the driver’s side before she shut the door and called after them, “No fucking in the woods, you crazy kids.”</p><p>Kate laughed, glancing back over her shoulder even as she teasingly took Castle’s hand and hung on him. “Don’t yell, you’ll wake my kids, and then it’s up to you to entertain them, Uncle Col.”</p><p>Castle missed it, but he assumed Colin shot her a withering glare because she hummed in appreciation and actually twined her arm through his in a wonderful display of possession.</p><p>As soon as they were a few feet into the trees where the mist no longer dappled her eyelashes, Castle elbowed her in the side. “Wanna fuck?”</p><p>“Well, yes, of course. Didn’t you realize when I climbed out after you?”</p><p>Castle startled and glanced over at her, but holy fuck, she wasn’t kidding. “Kate fucking Beckett, learn to listen to your body.” He gestured up and down, half kidding, half serious, not sure whether to be horrified by how rubbery and elastic she seemed to think her insides were, or just fucking impressed. “You could be a spy, you know. You just don’t fucking stop.”</p><p>“I’d really like to not stop fucking, that’s the plan. Maybe you could kiss me a little against a tree?”</p><p>“You’re serious,” he marveled, but he was already catching hold of her hips and driving her back against the massive trunk of a sycamore. She grunted when her spine hit the bark, but she’d asked for it, and of course she arched into him and wound her arms around his neck.</p><p>“I wanna do something different this time. Will you show me something else?”</p><p>“Something different,” he echoed, absorbed by the dew that made her lashes like diamonds. Or tears. “What different, baby?”</p><p>“I don’t know. You tell me.”</p><p>“You mind me taking your pants off in the middle of the woods?” He caressed her thighs through the material of her jeans, up and down until the friction stung his palms.</p><p>“You can do anything you like to me,” she murmured, lifting her mouth to touch his. Her kiss was eager and hot and deep, and he had no idea why she was so turned on all the time. She was just so ready to go, even if her body wasn’t ready.</p><p>Slightly obsessive. He saw that, he could acknowledge that. She was in denial about a vast and unescapable trauma, and sex was a release and a pressure valve. But he also hoped that it was her one true experience of unconditional love.</p><p>“Castle,” she hummed. “Do I have to be clearer? Take my pants off, baby.”</p><p>He chuckled against her lips and moved to his knees before her, watched her eyes darken as she followed his. He popped open her button and tugged on the zipper, appreciating the wriggle of her hips as she helped him work her jeans free. The woods were damp under his knees, pine needles poked at his shins, but the soft earth and the spice of crushed grass filled his nostrils, reminded him of her.</p><p>When her jeans were off, he came back up to his knees and kissed the top of her thigh, one and then the other, and then he rubbed his nose against the waistband of her beautiful panties.</p><p>Kate combed her fingers through his hair. That same flip of his bangs back from his forehead as she did to Wyatt so often. His heart soared, and he pressed his cheek to her stomach, holding her by the hips, nuzzling into her silk panties.</p><p>“Rick,” she murmured. Fingers dancing along his ear. He kissed her inside wrist and nudged his nose back against her silk-clad sex, inhaled sharply.</p><p>She trembled, her knees knocking into his chest. He held her easily by her hips, felt the way she shifted with the ache of bruises. He had seen those finger marks on her inside thighs too, where he’d held her down, held her open, fucked her. He’d seen the red rash against her collarbones, between her breasts, the angry pink of her sex where he had bit and rubbed and marked her.</p><p>“Rick, please,” she husked.</p><p>He tucked his thumbs under her panties and dragged them down her thighs. She stepped high to get out of them, struggling out before he could do much other than hold her up. When she was bare from the waist down, he tugged at the back of her shirt to cover her ass and then pressed her back to the tree. Firmly.</p><p>She gripped his forearms, her hips rocking unashamedly against the trunk. He bumped in close and she mewled, restless on her feet, always moving under his hands and breath.</p><p>“Rick, I need you. I need you, don’t tease.”</p><p>Just as she’d needed him to hold her while she’d cried. He was beginning to understand her; slowly, but he was learning.</p><p>Castle kneaded her thighs and brought his thumbs into her sex, spread apart her lips. She whined and jerked her hips, and he allowed the contact, a brief, chaste kiss.</p><p>Or would be chaste, if she wasn’t soaking wet, if he wasn’t kissing her cunt.</p><p>Cunt. What a beautifully brutal word. He was going to teach that one to her too, the moment he rose to his feet.</p><p>But right now, he wanted to fuck her with his tongue and see if he could still make her come after all this.</p><p>-----</p><p>She tilted her head back to the dark sky, the vast dark sky with the gaping void, and she was so small, she was nothing compared to that immeasurable limitless infinite.</p><p>And then his tongue arrowed inside her, stroking.</p><p>Kate went up on her toes, his mouth carrying her higher, higher. Oh, God, his tongue was inside her, stroking, curling, pressing into her in a way both entirely erotic and completely unsettling.</p><p>His stubbled cheeks caught her thighs, burned against the places he’d already made raw. Kate realized her hips were jumping, tugging away from his mouth only to rock forward again, the sensations electric. Lewd.</p><p>He suckled at her sex and scraped his teeth against her clit. She squealed and caught his ears, moaning when he laughed against her sex, those vibrations shaking her to the core. Kate was going to fall, she was going to fall, her knees were buckling-</p><p>Castle caught her, pushed her back to the tree, her hands clutching his head between her legs as the terrible pressure tightened.</p><p>Taut.</p><p>Breaking.</p><p>She cried out with her orgasm, her body giving way to collapse against him, spilling into the pine needles. Castle had her by the hips, kept his mouth on her for longer than she thought possible, long enough to make her body ripple with something like another one, a burst of feeling that bloomed heat in her belly.</p><p>With the last of her senses, she wound her legs around his waist and buried her face in his shoulder, gasping for breath.</p><p>His wide hands framed her ribs, rubbed up and down, and then his mouth found hers, the slick taste of herself on his tongue.</p><p>He kissed her like he’d kissed her sex, deep, penetrating, and then playing at the roof of her mouth, just inside her lips, teasing the edges of her mouth so that she moaned. Her tongue came to his, sliding past, causing shudders to fall down her spine.</p><p>His thumbs brushed the undersides of her breasts, his kiss went on and on. She was naked below the waist, the material of his pants chafing her inside thighs, her legs wide to fit around his hips so that she felt exposed and curiously sheltered.</p><p>His mouth withdrew wetly, a suckle of her bottom lip before he put her away from him. His fingers stroked up her sides and around to her back, cupped her jaw with the whole of his hands, so possessive and wide, so encompassing.</p><p>She blinked slowly, her eyes slow to focus on his, but when they did - when they did-</p><p>He touched a kiss against her lips, a soft kiss, and enveloped her. Arms around her, body close, almost one skin, almost one. She could still taste herself from him, she could still feel the wetness between her legs, the slick pleasure that buzzed her like the hum of bees in the wildflowers when she’d lazed in the meadow in the woods.</p><p>She opened her eyes.</p><p>And somehow the darkness wasn’t so dark. What had been boundless was now a carpet rolled out ahead of her, a pathway to the heavens glittering with stars that - if she only reached up - she could touch.</p><p>-----</p><p>They laid side by side in the clearing, watching the constellations as they dragged across the sky. The sun was already making a showing, pale yellow washing out the ground, the low-lying shrubs. The trees were dark, textured shadows. </p><p>He had her hand in his. Her cool fingers warmed where they touched his skin. She was breathing softly in the fading darkness, a strand of her hair caught in the scruff of his cheeks and tickling him, but he’d never dislodge it. He wouldn’t move an inch until she forced him up and away.</p><p>He thought she’d slept a little out here. They’d been gone long enough that he had texted his brother they were okay, and Kate hadn’t made a comment, so he had assumed she was asleep. But now she was awake, he could feel her awareness beside him.</p><p>Her fingers curled up suddenly, curling in his palm like a small bird. He cupped her hand and she moved her head against the pillow of pine needles; he could hear the sound of her shifting, though he couldn’t see her.</p><p>“Do you - think there’s anything up there?” she said finally.</p><p>“Spiritually, or physically?”</p><p>“Is there a difference,” she sighed.</p><p>He wished he knew the direction she wanted this conversation to go. What she was driving at. “I’d say, statistically, the chances of us being alone in the universe are slim.”</p><p>“Spiritually or physically?” she echoed quietly.</p><p>He was stunned into silence, penetrating the mystery of that idea. </p><p>“I want my parents to be up there,” she breathed.</p><p>He stayed still, hoping for more. He wanted someone to be up there now, just for her.</p><p>“I want them - them to see me, even if I can’t - even if I can’t see them. I need them to be up there.”</p><p>“In - heaven?” he got out. The words were foreign on his tongue; he wondered if they sounded to her as awkward coming out of his mouth as they did to him.</p><p>“In heaven. You know the sky is also called the heavens. How many heavens are there?”</p><p>“I - don’t know.”</p><p>“Is it in layers, you think?” she murmured. Her fist in his cupped palm trembled, the vibrations going up their pressed-together forearms and reverberating somewhere in his chest. “Layers of heaven, all laid over each other, all these overlaps. A layer of stars, a layer of clouds.”<br/>“A layer of ozone?”</p><p>“Maybe. I don’t know what else to think. I have to - have them.”</p><p>“I know,” he said quietly.</p><p>“My mom watched me taken - taken while she could do nothing. Stabbed and-”</p><p>“I know,” he croaked, pushing something of his voice out into the terrible pauses between her words. The pauses that colored in the lines, fleshed out the horror.</p><p>“That can’t - can’t have been the last thing she saw. The last thing she knows of - of all of her life, the whole of her life to come down to that, God, I can’t - can’t live if she’s not - if she’s not-”</p><p>“I know,” he cried. Tears slicked down his cheeks and she was vibrating with all the things she couldn’t seem to carry any longer. He was afraid that turning into her would dam her up, stop her words, and it seemed more important that she speak than that he comfort her.</p><p>“I want my mom, Castle.”</p><p>“Me too,” he whispered, tears falling back into his ears, making his head thick. “I wish I...”</p><p>She turned then and laid her cheek to his bicep, laying over his arm so that their hands were pressed to her pelvis. His throat hurt; he could feel her tears on his skin where she leaked out over his shirt.</p><p>“You don’t remember her?” she said.</p><p>“No. Nothing.”</p><p>“Not - even a little? A sense of her or-”</p><p>“No,” he said, voice cracking. “No. If it was ever there. Gone now.”</p><p>“My mom used to - used to practice her closing arguments in the hallway, under the dome light. She’s tall - she was tall - and the top of her head would brush the glass globe when she was in her heels. She practiced in heels. Walking back and forth. For court.”</p><p>“You ever get to see her try a case?”</p><p>“Defense,” she murmured. She laid beside him without moving, hard as stone. Her tears were still fresh, but then again, so were his. He had never known anything at all of his mother. “She was a defense attorney.”</p><p>“Oh.” The sky was rich, layered as she’d said, like ink in the ocean when a school of squid had been frightened. Was that all it was? Scared created things, darting away before he could ever get a good look? </p><p>“I saw two cases, in my whole life. She didn’t like us to watch her work. She paced the hallway and her hair would brush the glass fixture in the ceiling and that’s what I remember about her so - so clearly. She had that same look on her face when she - when he took me. Like if she could just - just see it through - if she could just get it exactly right, it would turn out exactly how it ought to. Everything would be right.”</p><p>Kate had that look at times too. “Fierce,” he said.</p><p>“Yeah.” She lifted a hand from the cradle of his where they were tucked into the curve and harbor of her curled up body. She wiped at her cheeks, rubbed the tears onto the side of her thigh. “I just have to - there has to be a way for her to see it through. I just want to see her, to know she knows that I’m - that it’s not the horror that was on my face in that alley. Life isn’t a horror.”</p><p>His mouth twisted as he held it back, nodding foolishly against the pine needles, against the sky crowded with stars and pointlessly blank for all that. So damn empty.</p><p>He wished it too. That life wasn’t a horror. That someone could say that at all, that someone - someone out there would promise him for her. For her, just - he just needed it to be not a horror for her.</p><p>“And my dad, my daddy - he - he just - he’s dead, Castle. Killed because he was looking for me, because he was - trying to do that for my mom, to make that last thing - to make it not such a horror, and I...”</p><p>Castle cleared his throat but it didn’t help, the tightness like a twisting fist. “I know. I - he was trying to find you.”</p><p>And my father had him killed.</p><p>“I don’t - have anything left of them. I don’t have - I don’t know what - I don’t know who I am any more. I don’t know how to do this.”</p><p>He swiped at his face, sucked in a hard breath.</p><p>She rolled to her back again, a blurred form. She crooked her arm over her eyes. “I’m so tired of crying.”</p><p>He gulped back anything else that tried to come out, but he had no voice to speak.<br/>There weren’t words anyway. </p><p>-----</p><p>There was a long time of crying in the darkness. A long time. </p><p>But then it started to get lighter. The stars dimmed, but the sun was taking its time to wash early light across the world, the palest of yellows, like the down on a baby duck. And all Kate had to do was rub her cheek into her shoulder a few times and the tears had stopped.</p><p>Her head was aching, her nose running, but the terrible pressure behind her eyes was gone. She wouldn't say she felt better but maybe she really did. Maybe this was all better was going to be for her.</p><p>Castle had been silent, holding her hand through it. She'd seen tears on his cheeks too, and she knew it had been unfair to ask about his mother. Unfair to make it personal to him just because she hadn't wanted to cry alone.</p><p>She let out a long sigh just as the light hit the top most line of trees, giving them their colors again, and then she turned her body into his for the warmth.</p><p>He was warm, and her tension melted, trickled out of her as the heat of him eased her muscles and tendons and bones. Her heart.</p><p>And then suddenly he was rolling over into her as well, wrapping both arms around her so that her head was wedged between his shoulder and neck and his thigh between her knees. She found a way to snake an arm around him, to hold him tighter, and after a while she realized he wasn't crying any longer, he was just - keeping her.</p><p>"I'm okay," she told him. She cleared her throat and tried again. "I'm really okay."</p><p>"I know," he answered. </p><p>"You do know." He'd said it again and again as she'd dragged all of that terrible stuff out of her. Again and again. I know. And it had helped. Helped to have him know. "You know me. You know how I feel about-" She fell off abruptly, surprise filling in the spaces between her words. How she felt. He knew how she felt. </p><p>Oh. How she felt.</p><p>"I know," he whispered.</p><p>She gasped in a breath, strangely light-headed, but she clutched him harder. How she felt. How did she feel? What did she want? What did life mean now, again, after all of this? Who was she if she wasn't Jo's daughter or Jim's willful only child?</p><p>Who was she?</p><p>"I know," he sighed into her hair.</p><p>Strange that it didn't seem to matter; it had only caught her by surprise - all the things she did feel, the ways she knew herself, the things she had no doubt about: She would not let Castle or Colin kill Mark Eastman. She desperately wanted to see her sons grow into good men. Him.</p><p>Him. No doubt. </p><p>"I know you do," she finally murmured, finding the hem of his shirt and sneaking her fingers inside. His skin was so warm. He was warm and strong, and she didn't care that she wanted that - that protection. She didn't even care. Let him hold her together for as long as it worked.</p><p>It was in that strange dawn that the vibration from his phone buzzed between them. She gasped and laughed, untangling herself just long enough to touch the pocket where it vibrated. He chuckled and worked his hand under hers to grab it.</p><p>"Colin says Eastman came home."</p><p>Kate lifted her head, exultance washing through her. "He did."</p><p>"So now we-"</p><p>"Wait," she said firmly. "Until the woman leaves. His wife. We approach her, Castle."</p><p>"I know," he answered, nodding back. "That's the plan. We stick to the plan."</p><p>"We should get up, head back," she murmured. "Boys will be hungry soon."</p><p>"Boys will be missing you," he said, already pushing up to his knees. She scrambled to stand, realized with some kind of horror that she wasn't wearing any pants. He must have noticed her noticing because he grinned, that sly smile on his face. "Your panties are in my pocket. Here."</p><p>He pulled them out, dangling the lace and silk by two fingers. She growled and swiped them, narrowing her eyes, and he chuckled at her, that slow look up and down her body that made her flush, as if he was transmitting the heat he carried around inside him directly to her.</p><p>"Need help with that?" he hummed. </p><p>"Such arrogance," she muttered, stepping into her panties and sliding them on. </p><p>"You like me arrogant. You love me arrogant. If I weren't so arrogant, you wouldn't respect me."</p><p>Jeans halfway on, she paused, shot him a look. Panic crawled over his face, but she tilted her head, studied him just a moment longer so that he could really feel it. "You might be right," she said then. Letting it linger, what he might be right about. Letting the incredulity slam into him. "I might not respect you if you weren't so damn arrogant."</p><p>He laughed. Bright as the dawn. It echoed in the woods and stopped the birds from singing, made Kate go still just to catch all of it. How he sounded, relieved and happy both, how she might have accidentally sent him a message she hadn't realized he had needed so badly. </p><p>She wouldn't take it back. You might be right. What, really, had she even conveyed? A maybe. A suggestion of things going one way or another, depending.</p><p>Safe enough, that way. She hadn't hurt anything saying it. She had made him laugh like that, made him puffed up with pride too, just like Wyatt, strutting around like he was the greatest thing since sliced bread.</p><p>"You and your son," she said, shaking her head as she buttoned her jeans. </p><p>"Me and my son?" Bright, such a bright voice. Cheerful again despite the dirt on his face where his tears had tracked. "Me and my son what?"</p><p>She zipped her jeans and came into Castle, made sure their hips bumps and brushed, thighs pressed, and she reached up and rubbed the dirt from his face. "So proud of yourselves," she murmured. "So pleased to get a smile. Like you invented it."</p><p>"Maybe we did," he said, chin jutting forward, determined. She'd seen that look in James, thought it was her own. Maybe it was actually Castle's stubbornness and not hers. That made her smile and of course Castle thought it was for him, and he hummed and kissed her, smile to smile, rubbing, his arms banded low around her.</p><p>No one was broken. Cried all night but no one was broken beyond repair.</p><p>She surged into his arms and wrapped herself around him, holding on tightly. Words crowded in her throat, stupid things she couldn't hold promises to, so she didn't say any of them. She just squeezed him tighter.</p><p>"Let's get back," she said finally, voice cracking with the effort. "Let's - hold my hand, Castle, and let me take you back."</p><p>"Yes, ma'am."</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They were on the move before Castle was really reconciled to it. Around eleven, the woman had driven off the property in a solid little Volvo, and Colin had started up the Jeep and followed. Sure enough, she was heading straight for the grocery store an hour away, and while they paced the woman, Castle tried to keep his mouth shut.</p><p>He wanted to call it off, just take his weapon and head back to that farmhouse and go in alone, him versus Eastman, get the job done. But he’d promised, and this was the plan, and they were crew.</p><p>Kate was feeding the boys slices of cheese and turkey from the travel kit Castle had made up before they’d left. Just enough lunch to keep them quiet, not enough to make them too tired and therefore cranky. That was the hope anyway. It was difficult to arrange a mission around two babies’ schedules.</p><p>“Here we go,” Colin said, nodding to the exit just as the woman took the off-ramp. “She’s going to the grocery store.”</p><p>“Or the post office,” Castle countered, but he closed his mouth and ground his teeth to shut himself up.</p><p>Kate leaned forward between the bucket seats. “Yes. Or the post office. You’re right.”</p><p>He sighed, a little disgusted that his attitude was so bad Kate had to try to reassure him. “But probably groceries.”</p><p>“I wonder where Eastman was?” Colin mused, following the woman at a sedate pace. “The records I snagged from the military database didn’t list him as inactive, but most of his info was marked confidential.”</p><p>“He was training people for Black two years ago,” Castle said. “So probably the same.”</p><p>“So does he know Black is dead?” Kate asked. “And if he does, don’t you think he seems awfully unconcerned?”</p><p>“We didn’t get much of a look at him,” Colin answered. “But no, he didn’t look that worried. And if he was part of Black’s organization, he surely would know by now. Castle, didn’t he shepherd you all through the war?”</p><p>Castle rubbed his jaw. “Yeah. He was my handler for about three years, and then again after Ireland, he was the one assigned to me. I don’t think he liked me much.”</p><p>“Why not?” Kate cried out.</p><p>He gave her a little smile for that, her indignation touching something vulnerable in him he didn’t like to look at. “I’m an asshole,” he said quietly, shrugging. “And I was pretty damn proud of who I was and what I’d done for entirely too long.”</p><p>“You are not-”</p><p>“Oh, he was,” Colin interrupted. “He was an asshole, for sure. Trying to make this guy open his eyes was like beating my head against a brick wall.”</p><p>Castle frowned, gripping the door handle with a tight fist.</p><p>“Castle,” she said. As if say it ain’t so was coming out of her next.</p><p>“I’m the golden boy,” he murmured. “I was anyway. And then - like he said - my eyes were opened. But I’m afraid Eastman doesn’t like me much. I probably got him in trouble. I know I did.”</p><p>Kate sat back in the seat, and Castle sighed, turning his head away, eyes on the landscape. He’d been a fucking teacher’s pet, and he knew it now. He was ashamed of it, how much he’d been his father’s errand boy, tattling on those who didn’t approach the CIA life the same way. There had been such clear right and wrong, such black and white issues for him then, and yet even with all of that in rubble at his feet, he still had the burning sense of righteousness.</p><p>What had been done to Kate was absolutely wrong. Absolutely.</p><p>And Eastman had been part of it.</p><p>But he’d made a promise to Kate, and as he was reminded of his own fucked up attitude, it might be true that he himself owed Eastman as well. A freebie.</p><p>“Here we go,” Colin said suddenly, and turned off the main exit road and onto a side street. “The market is just down this street according to the map.”</p><p>They’d been over it and over it, and yet Castle was sick to his stomach thinking about it. He wasn’t sure if it was nerves or excitement, that was the problem.</p><p>He was on edge, he was as nervous as a 14 year old on his first immersion mission in Hong Kong, holy fuck was he dreading this in the best way.</p><p>“Castle?” she murmured, two fingers plucking his sleeve.</p><p>He turned and saw her chewing on her lower lip, nervous herself, or maybe just afraid of what he might do. What he felt.</p><p>“You ready?” he asked, catching her hand and squeezing. Colin was pulling into a parking spot on the other side of the lot. “Time to go hunting.”</p><p>Kate let out a breath and nodded. “Let’s do this.”</p><p>-----</p><p>James was content in the seat of the shopping cart, but Wyatt wanted in and out of the basket, holding his arms up to Castle while Kate pushed. She teased Wyatt to James, winking at him when he tilted his head at another of Wyatt’s pouting demands. </p><p>They were purposefully trying not to follow the woman too closely, but they’d already noted she was well-liked, greeted by most as she went through the aisles. Carrie someone had said, and then spoke of a beloved pet, some kind of gastric issue, while Kate and Castle had shared amused looks.</p><p>Castle tugged a box of cereal out of Wyatt’s hands and dropped it in the basket. He kept doing that, picking groceries off the shelves, like they were going to be eating any of this.</p><p>Maybe they were. Castle had said the best cover was the one that was real. He’d said that as he put the ring on her finger, of course, which meant things she was ignoring. “Rick,” she muttered, shaking her head. “The cereal thing is getting ridiculous.”</p><p>He glanced back, Wyatt with an arm hooked around his neck and looking at her too. “What?”</p><p>“Do we need five boxes?”</p><p>“The way they go through it?”</p><p>She wrinkled her nose, conceding his point, and pushed the basket on. She was leaning against the handle with her forearms, close to James in the basket, making a face at him. James leaned forward to meet her, knocking his forehead into her chin, and she laughed loud enough to cause Castle to turn and look at her.</p><p>“Eyes forward,” she chastised him.</p><p>“I can multi-task,” he muttered, but he turned back around. They were winding their way through the meat section, heading for the bakery and their intentional unintentional run-in with the woman.</p><p>Carrie.</p><p>She’d been thinking about this all night, what she’d say, how she’d say it, and she still hadn’t come up with the best words. She was, in essence, going to wing it, but that was only because she had no idea how the woman would react or what she might say in response to Kate’s opening gambit.</p><p>Lack of imagination. Kate just had no idea what came next.</p><p>But it was coming right now.</p><p>Castle started it, not bothering to lower his voice. “Hey. Isn’t that-?”</p><p>She took a fast breath and quickly moved past him, reaching out to touch the back of the woman’s elbow. “Carrie?”</p><p>The woman turned, startled, face as open as innocence allowed. “Yes?”</p><p>“I’m sorry to bother you, but are you Mark Eastman’s Carrie?”</p><p>The innocence closed off. Eyes still bright, smile still on, but wariness now. “His wife, yes. And you are?”</p><p>Kate beamed, though her heart was trembling, and she felt Castle at her side with Wyatt, the basket against her hip. “I’m Kate,” she said brightly. “Mark was my training officer in the military. He taught me a few things that - well - pretty much saved my life.”</p><p>It wasn’t a lie. Mark Eastman had been the one who’d told her, Go for the jugular. Eastman who had given her the flip move that she’d pulled on the last trainer, brought him down.</p><p>Carrie gave a neutral smile. “Thank you for saying so.”</p><p>It seemed a dead end, but Kate turned and laced her arm through Castle’s, patting Wyatt on the back. “It’s funny to find you here. We’re on vacation, wanted a place near enough to the city, but we thought we ought to be close enough to drive back. Just in case the boys don’t take to the cabin. Anyway. Rick and I were just talking about Mark.” </p><p>“Oh?” Carrie said, that polite to strangers voice.</p><p>Kate nodded, shifting on her feet, realized she was twisting the ring on her finger. “Yeah. It seems he saved us both.”</p><p>“He was my mentor,” Castle spoke up. She knew he was trying to save it. “Took me under his wing during Desert Storm. Grabbed my by the pack and hauled me out of the way of a landmine. Didn’t even see it.”</p><p>Carrie’s shoulders came down, her face cautiously open. “You’re a soldier? You both-”</p><p>“Was,” Castle said. “Were.” He shot her a fast look, and she smiled at him, easing the almost-flub of that singular verb.</p><p>Kate leaned in and kissed Wyatt. “We owe him so much. We’d never have met if Mark hadn’t been there to save our asses.” She laughed a little and glanced back to Carrie, and suddenly she knew it would never work. This would never work. But it seemed important - necessary - that Mark Eastman know just what he’d done for her. “Can you - I don’t know. Just tell him from us? Rick and Kate. I think he’d remember us. I’m sure he would remember me, that’s for sure. I was - pretty rough around the edges. I had - um - trouble with the military discipline, I guess you could say, and he was - he was nice to me.”</p><p>She realized she’d said too much, felt her face burn with it. She turned to the basket, mindlessly, reached out to caress James’s face, steadying herself by stroking the edge of his ear. James tilted his head into her hand, smiled shyly at her. </p><p>“Hey,” Carrie said into the awkward silence, “look, why don’t you guys follow me back to our place? Mark just got home; I’m picking up his favorites for tonight. You could talk. Tell him yourself.”</p><p>Kate froze.</p><p>“We don’t want to intrude,” Castle said for her, shifting Wyatt to his other hip. “He just got home. Special dinner and all that-”</p><p>“Not an intrusion. Mark will be glad to get out of his chores.”</p><p>Kate turned to look, took a tight breath, not quite able to believe this was working. All she’d had to do was get a little weepy, a lot unstable, and Carrie had offered them the world. She must be the town vet. Taking home strays.</p><p>Carrie was smiling gently at her. “How about it? Want to tell Mark yourself?”</p><p>“I... yes,” she said, throat tightening. “I’d really like that.”</p><p>“Kate, honey,” Castle murmured, taking her by the elbow. “I don’t think-”</p><p>“Nonsense,” Carrie replied. “You’re coming. Meet you at the checkout lane, about fifteen minutes. I live way out Route 23, you know the one?”</p><p>Kate sucked in a breath but Castle just nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I know the one.”</p><p>And they were in.</p><p>-----</p><p>Colin was left stranded in the parking lot of the grocery store - but not for long; he had already called a rental place and they were driving in at the very moment Castle was driving the Jeep out.<br/>Kate glanced back to the rental car, a blue BMW, memorizing its look and the plates, and then she turned to face front again. Colin had called for a rental car before they had even come out of the store, so certain they’d gotten an invite.</p><p>It had somehow restored some of her confidence. </p><p>Castle rested his hand on her seat and scratched at her thigh through her jeans. “You did good, Kate. You sold it.”</p><p>“I didn’t mean to,” she admitted. She turned to check on the boys; they were both droopy-eyed in their carseats, the forward motion hypnotizing. “I got a little - too honest.”</p><p>“Honesty is the best policy,” he quoted, and then winced as if he’d heard himself. Or maybe Black had always said that to him, though she couldn’t quite believe it. “Well, a dose of honesty in every lie makes the whole thing easier to swallow. What we’ve told her is mostly true, but she could sense certain elements we were holding back.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Kate sighed. “She wasn’t buying it until then. Until I - kinda got desperate.”</p><p>“No,” he said quietly. “That wasn’t desperation. Desperation would have turned her off. As it does everyone. Like it’s catching. What you did was honest and vulnerable, and people naturally want to - to help. They offer things they shouldn’t.”</p><p>She wrapped her arms around herself and stared through the front windshield, digesting that. How she’d been - broken, a little broken - she hadn’t meant to, but it had cracked open inside her and come spilling out and rather than being horrified or disgusted, Carrie had been open-hearted.</p><p>And well, maybe she had it confused with desperation. It all felt so much the same. Thick and cloying and panicky.</p><p>She blinked and they were there. Parked. His hand on her knee, his voice calling, low and persistent and caring.</p><p>Kate turned her head to him. </p><p>“We’re here, Kate.” A pause as he studied her. “Are you?”</p><p>“I’m here,” she croaked. Surprised at how rusty her voice sounded. </p><p>Castle reached up and brushed the backs of his fingers at her cheek. They came away wet.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she scraped out. “I didn’t mean to cry.”</p><p>He laughed, a kind of hopeless thing. “No, don’t - there’s nothing at all wrong with crying, honey.”</p><p>“Are you ready?” she said instead, rubbing her hand under his to swipe at her cheeks. She was better now. She was fine. She turned and saw the boys, both of them awake but it wouldn’t be long now. “You guys ready to be charming and sweet and win them over?”</p><p>Castle let out a little sigh that she ignored in favor of opening her car door and jumping down. She felt normal, despite the hour-long drive she’d apparently zoned out on, and the tears. She felt normal. She was a woman with a normal family, these two babies, and she was getting them out of their carseats and maybe she’d had a little tiff with her husband, but it was normal.</p><p>Jeans, a baby blue t-shirt that she’d stolen from him, a bra that made her breasts look fantastic. Wedding band. It all fit. Normal. And her vulnerability had been real but it was still just a blip, a moment.</p><p>Normal people did that too.</p><p>She reached in and unstrapped Wyatt, kissing his cheek as she pulled him into her arms. He snuggled down against her chest, patting her on the back with a little hand as he did, one foot swinging free and kicking out, as if he was trying to keep himself awake. Or enjoying himself maybe.</p><p>Kate came around to the other side and met up with Castle, who had James in his arms. Carrie was standing beside her own car, struggling with a couple paper bags, which Castle hurried forward and took from her. She looked flustered, gave Kate a strange look, and then shook her head. </p><p>“You’re carrying a baby and you’re trying to help me with a couple bags of groceries? Hand it back, soldier.”</p><p>Kate burst into laughter, startled but seriously enjoying this, and Castle shot her a growling look for it. </p><p>Colin was supposed to be right behind them; the plan was to delay a few moments here, just to be sure he made it into position back at the recon sight, where the cameras would be broadcasting.</p><p>“She has your number,” Kate said, smirking at him, shifting Wyatt on her hip. “Go on, Rick. I think she has it under control.”</p><p>Castle grumbled but he handed back the groceries, and Carrie took them with an amused twist of her lips. Kate found herself really liking this woman.</p><p>“Either of you have cold food that should go in the house?”</p><p>“Oh,” Kate answered, straightening up. Perfect way to delay. “We do, actually. You don’t mind? Rick, honey, go get the ice cream.”</p><p>Carrie’s lips quirked and then she nodded her head for the back porch. “Come on, let’s go on in. And Rick, just come on through. Ice cream is always welcome. I’m sure Mark will be along shortly. He was supposed to be cutting the grass in the south pasture.”</p><p>“Cutting the grass?” she said blankly, delaying a moment longer. Every moment would help. “In the pasture? Won’t that - take ages?”</p><p>Carrie chuckled. “We have a tractor, Kate. Goes pretty fast. Roll the dry grass into elephant biscuits and-”</p><p>“Elephant biscuits?” she asked, straightening up. </p><p>“The bales out there, rolled up in the pasture. That’s what my family always called them. Don’t know why.” She shrugged and headed for the back porch, apparently unwilling to be delayed any longer.</p><p>Kate shrugged to Castle and followed.</p><p>“Kate,” he hissed, snagging her elbow with a shake of his head. She paused, glanced back to Carrie disappearing through the porch’s swinging door. But she waited on Castle, understanding he didn’t want them split up, not with the boys, not with Eastman’s exact whereabouts unknown.</p><p>When Castle rejoined her with the ice cream, he nodded. A look on his face as if he deeply appreciated her waiting.</p><p>“Let’s go,” he said, James in his arms, the ice cream in a bag. “We’ve been invited to a dinner party.”</p><p>“Nothing like being fashionably late.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle wasn't sure they were pulling this off. When he set James on his feet and let the boy run off, Carrie gave him an incredulous look and went chasing after, checking things he'd never have thought about. Outlets, breakables, poisonous plants, cleaners.</p><p>Shit.</p><p>Kate gave him a shrug and then touched Carrie's arm as the woman - flustered, somehow - wrestled with a bottle of Endust left on the table. "They won't," Kate told her. "Trust me. They'll never touch it."</p><p>And that was true. The boys were good in a way that was chilling sometimes, and even if James was the more adventurous one, it wasn't in the way of drinking cleaning fluid or pulling all the pots and pans out of the cabinets. </p><p>"They - won't?" Carrie said, her hands settling. "I just - don't have kids. Not used to kids, you know? I... they scare the shit out of me, frankly." Carrie gave a horrified laugh, clapped a hand over her mouth. "I'm so sorry. I just cursed."</p><p>Kate laughed, giving him a sideways look as she did. "Carrie, we curse so much that I'm afraid that ship has sailed."</p><p>Carrie set the aerosol can back on the table. "Military, yeah, I guess that's true. Well, sorry for the - mess. I wasn't expecting guests."</p><p>There was a moment's social awkwardness, three people not friends yet but obviously more personal than it should ever be. Castle shifted on his feet, nodding to Kate.</p><p>She put Wyatt down on the floor as well, his feet touching the shaggy rug and making him squeal. </p><p>They all laughed, some relief as well as amusement, watching Wyatt pick his feet up one at a time, the sensation of the furry rug going all through him until he shivered.</p><p>"Little sensory sensitive, huh?" Carrie said, reaching out to touch the top of Wyatt's head. "My littlest cousin was like that. Feels weird on your feet, huh?"</p><p>"That's Wyatt," Kate said, and then turned and gestured to the boy running his fingers over the back of the couch. "And that's James. I think they're both a little - what did you call it?"</p><p>"Sensory sensitive. The feeling of things, texture and sensation. It gets to them."</p><p>Kate nodded, and Castle felt his heart twist at the look on her face. As if she was thinking one more thing. Carrie didn't recognize it though, if she saw it at all, and she went on talking.</p><p>"I think most kids grow out of it. My cousin did. He's grown, now, of course, but well-" She shrugged and glanced at Castle. "Your age most likely."</p><p>Castle shifted on his feet at her assessing look. Like she had just now figured out how Kate was, how much older he was, and she was doing the math.</p><p>He was going to have to be very careful here. Carrie was - an advocate. That thing about the grocery bags; he had made the wrong play there, helping her out when it was obvious he had his hands full. Except he hadn't - James was never the wriggling and squirming one - but she had called him out.</p><p>She would call him out on Kate too, if he tried to instruct her. It would look like he was ordering her around, and he was used to giving orders, and she was used to - to following. And that was a fresh ache now as well, just thinking about that, how Kate followed because it had been her coping mechanism in the facility.</p><p>He was going to murder Eastman. The second Kate showed the slightest inclination of relenting, he was on that.</p><p>"Well, why don't we all sit down?" Carrie started, indicating the couch. "I've got lemonade cold in the fridge, and I don't need to start the steaks until later."</p><p>"Lemonade would be lovely," Kate said. "Do you need any help?"</p><p>"No, no, you sit. I'm not sure I really believe these guys won't stick their fingers in the sockets." Carrie laughed a little, like she couldn't quite believe any of them really, and then she moved through the wide doorway into the kitchen.</p><p>Castle crossed his arms over his chest, scanning the room.</p><p>"Sit down, Rick."</p><p>He glanced at her, realized he was effectively looming over her this way, and so he immediately sat down beside her. She leaned against his arm, threading her own through his, and kissed his shoulder through the  material of his shirt.</p><p>"It's okay," she told him. "It's going as well as we could hope."</p><p>He nodded. "It is. It's going very well."</p><p>"Mommy, me!"</p><p>Kate hummed and shifted forward to spot Wyatt at the end of the couch. She patted Castle's thigh. "Come on up, baby. You can do it."</p><p>Wyatt gripped the couch cushion and struggled to climb, but he did actually make it in the end, and Castle only had to nudge him once with his shoe to Wyatt's bottom. The boy crawled up and sat the end with a flourish, cheering for himself once he got there.</p><p>It was going well; Castle had no doubt. But he wouldn't forget, not for a second, that everything that was most precious to him was inside the house of his enemy.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate fed Wyatt chunks of watermelon from the couch; he was docile as a lamb as he licked his lips and mouth, had stopped trying to reach for a new piece to sit there and wait for her next offering. James was still roaming the room, trailing little fingers everywhere.</p><p>"Rick," she hissed, nodding to James. "Stop him."</p><p>Castle shot James a look and then gave her a confused one in response.</p><p>"Seriously, he's touching everything-"</p><p>"Oh, don't," Carrie said, half-rising from her seat as if she might intercept Castle. "He's fine, fine. Nothing wrong with being curious. Sensory sensitive, right? I understand that. Hey, James, isn't it? I got something you might like. Want to come with me?"</p><p>And before Kate could think about that, Carrie had taken James by the hand and was leading him through to the kitchen and then beyond to the back porch.</p><p>Her heart fell over.</p><p>"Well, but James..." Castle said from the couch. He was poised anyway, she saw, coiled to spring. "He'd know. James would know malevolent intent."</p><p>"I... hope?" she said. "But it's Carrie. She's - been incredibly kind. Opening her home to us. I mean she cut up a watermelon for Wyatt."</p><p>He nodded, but she saw his tension, felt it beginning to thrum inside her as well. At that moment, commotion from the back porch had her jerking to her feet, Castle already two steps ahead of her, Wyatt left to fend for himself with the bowl of watermelon thrust into his lap.</p><p>The boy squawked. Castle stopped short before the doorway. A tall man came into the living room carrying her son. Carrie came behind, a hedgehog in her hands.</p><p>James had an arm slung around Mark Eastman's neck, grinning as he reached out for her with the other, hand opening and closing in beckoning. "Mommy, mommy. You."</p><p>"Oh my God." Mark stopped dead in the doorway. "Oh my God, it's you."</p><p>The bowl of watermelon dropped somewhere behind her.</p><p>"Uck!"</p><p>-----</p><p>"What are you doing here?" Eastman said. "In my house. Why are you in my house?"</p><p>"Mark!"</p><p>Eastman's eyes darted fast to Kate, and then his arm tightened around James and her heart went in her throat. She darted forward, putting herself between Castle and Eastman, and she carefully reached out and caught James's seeking hand.</p><p>"Hey, baby," she said slowly, and at her touch, James tilted his head. </p><p>"Mommy?"</p><p>"It's okay," she said.</p><p>"No, it is not okay," Castle growled.</p><p>She elbowed him back but Carrie had insinuated herself right next to Mark, the hedgehog cupped protectively. "What's going on? Mark, she said you saved her life."</p><p>Eastman's eyes sharpened on her and she mutely held out her hands for her son, her heart thudding in both disbelief and anticipation. Mark hesitated, and it could have been because of James's arm around his neck, but it took a moment. It took a heartbeat, and then her son was falling into her chest and cuddling up, and then popping up his head and turning to Carrie.</p><p>"Mommy, mommy-" he started, pointing to the little animal in Carrie's hands.</p><p>"It's - Kate, right? I saved your life?" Mark said, but his eyes darted back to Castle. His body turned, a shoulder between her and Castle with Carrie on his other side so that it was like he spoke just to the two of them. "Are you - in some kind of danger? I can get you away from him."</p><p>"Away from me-"</p><p>"No, no," she hurriedly stepped in, a hand out to Castle, juggling James even as he tried to reach for the hedgehog. He had never been such a handful before. "No need, not in danger from Castle. Not at all. No."</p><p>"Castle?"</p><p>She gave Castle a blank look, then back to Eastman. "Him. He's Castle."</p><p>"He's John Black's son is what he is."</p><p>She laughed. She didn't mean to, it just slipped out, but everyone was standing too close and Castle was as bristly as that hedgehog behind her and James was wriggling to get down or get at that hedgehog and this was ridiculous.</p><p>"He is," she said, nodding. "But he's also my - he's the one man I trust." She dipped her knees and let James down to the floor, realized she felt Wyatt's sticky face pressing into the backs of her knees. "And yes. You saved my life. In a manner of speaking. But so did he - literally."</p><p>Eastman's hands twitched but he did nothing when James ran to Carrie and begged silently for the hedgehog.</p><p>"Kate," Castle said, an urgency in his voice that meant he didn't like this. But Wyatt broke free, slipping between her calves to clamber over her feet and run for the hedgehog as well. Carrie looked helplessly between them, but she leaned over and showed the boys her pet.</p><p>Eastman was staring at the boys, and then he dragged his gaze to her. "You - should - I hope you've told your father you're okay. Not nice to disappear on him. He was beside himself until I said something."</p><p>"You did what?" she gasped. "What did you do to my dad?"</p><p>Castle rushed forward, pushing himself between her and Eastman, putting her behind him. But Eastman's face was ashen.</p><p>"What do you mean, what did I do? I didn't do it - you did. You - you did. Broke his heart, disappearing the way you did. I know Black is a bastard but you seemed to have - such a heart... how could you let your dad think you'd been kidnapped?"</p><p>"I... was," she croaked.</p><p>"What?" Eastman stepped neatly aside from Castle, came straight for her. "What are you talking about. I saw you there. I trained you. For the program. Just like this one-" He jerked his head to Castle, who was already snaking his arm between them and forcibly removing her.</p><p>"Stop," she said. "Stop. Stop."</p><p>The whole room went still. They were all looking at her.</p><p>Eastman was standing in front of his wife, blocking the boys out, away from her. Castle on her side, his hand in a vise around her bicep. She needed help. She needed help and-</p><p>Castle cleared his throat. "We have a story to tell. If you'll hear it. It's not what you think. It's worse."</p><p>-----</p><p>She looked fragile.</p><p>Earnest and too thin, her cheekbones could cut. He could see the bones of her wrists, and the wedding band on her finger looked like it weighed her down.</p><p>She accepted the hedgehog from Carrie with a tight smile and Castle pressed the back of his hand against her thigh, trying to be subtle about it, but wanting her to know she had back-up. </p><p>Her eyes cut to his but so did Eastman’s. Nothing got past him. </p><p>Which made him worry about Colin out there. Damn it.</p><p>“He’s just a pet, not a rescue,” Carrie told her. The boys were crowding against Kate, up on their toes to peer into her hands. She hunched over so they could see and it made Castle nervous, the way Eastman sized everything up, read the situation.</p><p>“Well, the boys love him. Never seen something like this before.”</p><p>“Kate,” he said quietly. They had to get started; this pet stuff, the hospitality, it was making him nervous. The longer Eastman stood there without a weapon, the longer Castle was certain the man had a plan already in play.</p><p>“Yeah, here, uh - thanks,” she said, lifting the hedgehog back up to Carrie. Wyatt whined at Kate, but she dropped her finger to his lips and he went quiet, dropping his face into her knee and clutching her jeans.</p><p>God. That was gut-wrenching. He’d never seen it quite like that, but it obviously hit Eastman wrong. And Carrie too. They looked at each other and knowledge passed between them.</p><p>Kate cupped the back of Wyatt’s head and straightened up a little. “I guess I should start. Um. It’s... not all entirely kosher? Or, I don’t know what to call it. Um. Classified?”</p><p>Something went over Eastman’s face that Castle didn’t like. The man gave a short nod to his wife and then addressed Kate, not even looking at Castle, as if he was being dismissed from the equation, which meant something. It meant something and Castle didn’t know what.</p><p>“Kate, do you mind if we keep Carrie out of this?”</p><p>Carrie, the woman who had told off Castle for struggling to help her with the groceries, simply stood there, unprotesting.</p><p>“No, of course not,” Kate said, fingers running through Wyatt’s hair. James was circling their feet, tilting his head back to look at Eastman, and then coming back to Castle, to Kate, like he didn’t know where to settle. </p><p>“Carrie,” Eastman said quietly. “Get Beau and Mandy and head into the cellar.”</p><p>Beau, the dog. And Mandy-</p><p>Castle’s brain clicked over and he was drawing his weapon at the same time, point blank aiming for Eastman’s face, wishing he had the coldness of his former days to aim for Carrie.</p><p>“Castle!” Kate shifted like she might get in front of him, but Castle blocked her out, nearly body checking her to keep her from stepping into his line of sight. “Castle, what the hell-”</p><p>“Beau is the dog. Mandy is his gun. God damn it, Kate Beckett, get behind me.”</p><p>She froze.</p><p>He swore and grabbed her by the arm, none too gentle as he hauled her back. Eastman hadn’t moved an inch, Carrie was arrested mid-step, the hedgehog against her stomach as if to protect it.</p><p>Castle’s weapon didn’t falter.</p><p>“No,” Kate got out.</p><p>“Kate, if you need help...” Mark said slowly.</p><p>“No.” She was leaning hard out of Castle’s grip, struggling now. “No, this - you were nice to me-”</p><p>“Kate,” he hissed. </p><p>“He just - it’s his wife, Castle,” she said, sounding a little - a little broken. “It’s just - a pellet shotgun or-”</p><p>“No, honey,” he murmured, forcing himself not to take his eyes off Eastman. “No, it’s a pre-arranged signal. I’m sure it’s a fucking Desert Eagle, if I know Eastman.”</p><p>Carrie gasped. </p><p>Kate whipped her head around.</p><p>“See?” he said quietly. “Get the boys, Kate.”</p><p>A strangled noise sounded in her throat, but she hunched down and held her arms out to James. “Baby,” she husked. She swiped at her cheeks and Castle’s heart tore open, but James came running into her arms.</p><p>Wyatt did not.</p><p>Kate grunted and moved to step out of the circle of Castle’s protection, but he gripped the back of her shirt, fast, and held her there. She jerked around, ready to claw his eyes out, he was sure, but he shook his head once and called for Wyatt.</p><p>“Wy. Come on, son. Right now. Come here.”</p><p>The boy was on his hands and knees, had been trying, apparently, to creep up on Carrie to get a look at that hedgehog. But he glanced back to Castle and pouted. “No, Daddy!”</p><p>“Daddy?” Eastman bellowed.</p><p>Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, “Wyatt, right now.”</p><p>Eastman jerked forward; Castle steadied his grip, panic slithering in his guts, cold and terrible, but he didn’t have a shot, no shot, he had no shot and Eastman had Wyatt in his arms.</p><p>And Castle was a fucking assassin; he had shot a man’s throat out at four hundred yards.</p><p>But that was his son.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate dropped to her knees.</p><p>Castle’s breath caught, wouldn’t come back. A vacuum in his lungs.</p><p>“No,” Kate moaned.</p><p>Castle couldn’t breathe.</p><p>Eastman held Wyatt high, against his chest, and Wyatt, oblivious, struggled and reached for the hedgehog.</p><p>“Give - give him back,” Castle croaked. Ice in his lungs. “Don’t - don’t do this.” Oh God. Oh God. Eastman had his son.</p><p>“Let go of Kate,” the man said.</p><p>Castle groaned. Torn in two. “Don’t - do this. Don’t do this. Give me my son.”</p><p>Kate sobbed; he felt her fisting the back of his pants, hauling herself to her feet. She swayed, that terrible blank look on her face.</p><p>Oh, fuck.</p><p>White-out. Not now, not now, Kate, oh God, stay with me.</p><p>“Eastman, now,” he cracked. “Give him - you have to-”</p><p>“Kate, come over here.”</p><p>“Kate,” he keened. She swayed between them, her head turned back to him.</p><p>He had to stop this. He had to stop this. </p><p>Castle flipped his weapon flat to his palm, barrel up, holding it out. Surrender. He was the one, it was all on him, and if he - removed himself - she wouldn’t be hurt.</p><p>Eastman took a slow step forward. </p><p>Castle’s guts clenched but he released his weapon to the man and dropped his arm. But he didn’t release Kate; he couldn’t. And James. God. James leaning against his leg.</p><p>Castle was stripped bare. Kate wavered at his side. </p><p>Carrie reached out and gave the hedgehog over to Wyatt, who squealed with delight and broke something in the room, broke something in his chest. Carrie scooped Wyatt out of Eastman’s hold and then - and then - she turned around and settled Wyatt in his arms.</p><p>Castle clutched him, choking, pressing Wyatt close to his body, forgetting the hedgehog until Wyatt chattered rebukes at him. “Yeah, yeah, sorry,” he husked. He snagged Kate around the neck and dragged her into him, hiding her in the cove of his body and Wyatt’s together, letting her cry until that terrible blank look washed off her face.</p><p>“Daddy?”</p><p>“It’s okay,” he got out. “You’re okay. We’re all gonna be okay. I promise. I promise.”</p><p>Kate pressed her face into his neck, and suddenly she was biting him. Hard. She ripped at his skin as she let go, lifted her gaze to his. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”</p><p>He couldn’t make that promise. He’d already made too many untenable promises.</p><p>Like letting Eastman live.</p><p>-----</p><p>She didn’t know how this had happened.</p><p>Castle was on his knees, head bowed, hands behind his back, while Eastman stood over him with his own weapon.</p><p>She - had blanked for a second, hadn’t she? She had Wyatt now. She had Wyatt. She had Wyatt and James-? </p><p>Eastman raised the weapon.</p><p>“God!” She dropped in front of Castle, shoved Wyatt into his lap. Castle rocked back on his heels, Wyatt not pleased as he clung to Castle’s shirt, about to fall. Kate reached behind him and dug her fingers against the zip ties, frantic. “No. No, you can’t-”</p><p>“It’s okay, honey,” he murmured. A soft kiss against the corner of her eye. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Stand up, sweetheart. Take Wyatt. Take Wyatt and James out of the way.”</p><p>“No.” She turned violently, fingers cramped and caught in the zip tie, shouted at Eastman. “This isn’t right. Stop this. Everyone just stop. God, please. I need him.”</p><p>“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. He can help you.”</p><p>“No, I need you,” she sobbed, twisting back to him. She was going to break apart. “I need you. Don’t just quit, Castle. Don’t you dare quit on me.”</p><p>“Not quitting. Never quit you. I love you, I love you, Kate. Take the boys, stand up. Out of the way, baby, please. Please.”</p><p>“No.” She torqued, glared at Eastman. “You were nice to me, you - why are you doing this?”</p><p>“Stand up,” Eastman sighed. “Kate. Just - stand up and get away from him.”</p><p>“I won’t. You can’t do this to him. He’s not your enemy. We’re not the enemy.”</p><p>“You’ve been brainwashed. I get it. Black’s a very persuasive guy. I’ve been there. But this man - this man is his son. I trained himself myself, and I saw it firsthand. If you just stand up, Kate, we can take it from-”</p><p>“You don’t know him.” Kate nudged Wyatt until the boy had his feet on the floor, some semblance of maternal instinct beginning to kick in again. “You don’t know what he’s done for me. For the boys - our sons. These are our sons. You can’t kill him.”</p><p>“Who said I was going to kill him?”</p><p>Kate sank back to her heels, flicked a look to Castle. His jaw was set, face grim. Castle believed this could be the end. </p><p>But she - she believed Eastman too.</p><p>“You can’t kill him.”</p><p>“Hell, I’m not going to kill him. He held a gun on me and my wife.”</p><p>Kate leaned hard against Castle’s arm, gulping her breaths, relief making her almost dizzy. She’d - blanked. She had. It wasn’t good. She had blanked out and she had missed something and Castle’s suspicions were boiling in her guts even now, but she knew Eastman. She knew him.</p><p>“He doesn’t need to be tied,” she scraped out, moving back to his hands. “There’s no need for this. You have his weapon.”</p><p>“He has others.”</p><p>She glanced at Castle. Oh. Oh, he did. She grit her teeth and dug into the zip tie. “He won’t use them. You have one, he has - one or so. I’m sure you have them in your house and Carrie is an excellent shot, but this isn’t necessary. We just want to talk.”</p><p>“A son of Black never just wants to talk.”</p><p>She jumped to her feet, advanced on Eastman. “Stop calling him that. This is Castle. Castle. And when I killed Black, Castle is the one who got me out, and those boys, Castle rescued us.”</p><p>Eastman sank to the arm of the couch, hands on his knees, though his eyes didn’t leave her. “Got you - out?” And then he growled and shook his head. “Wait. Wait. When you killed Black?”</p><p>“She stabbed him with a scalpel. Jugular.” Castle lifted his head. “And after she ripped out his throat, she went for his eye. That’s your move, isn’t it, Eastman? You taught her that. You trained her and then you left her with him. You left her.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Rage burned so deep in his chest he could hardly breathe.</p><p>The licking fear had sent the rage merely smoldering, but now that Kate was back, within herself once more, and in the conversation again, the fear had receded and the fire blazed.</p><p>He loathed Eastman. The man had left her there. Had left her there. Walked away from that facility knowing she was inside, left her to Black. John Black. Whom he knew enough about to want to escape himself, and to sit on the edge of his damn couch and look relieved when they'd pronounced Black dead.</p><p>It was enough; he was condemned.</p><p>Kate's fingers came back to his cheeks. She was hunched over him, her desperation still flying like a banner in her eyes. He should have called in Colin and gotten this finished. Finished it. The boys were too young to imprint this kind of violence, right? And Kate would - would she have ever forgiven him?</p><p>He wasn't sure. And selfishly, he needed her with him more than he needed the absolute justice of Eastman dead.</p><p>"Stop, Kate, love," he husked. "Stop, honey."</p><p>"Shut up, Castle. I'm getting the ties off you." He felt her then, fumbling at his back, her body leaning into his, shoulder to shoulder as she sawed at the zip ties. He was pretty sure Eastman hadn't just handed her a knife, which meant she had brought it from home.</p><p>Oh, fuck, it was the scalpel. How the fuck did she get that back from Colin without his knowing it?</p><p>God. He was scared for her. She did things like this, things he didn't think she even knew she was doing. The ties broke and he brought his hand up to cup her face; she swayed into him, knocking her cheek against his jaw.</p><p>It looked bad. He knew it looked bad to Eastman, and he couldn't care less, but for the simple fact that it was doing this to her. He could see Eastman at attention once more, gun down at his thigh, but clearly ready to control the situation should he think it necessary.</p><p>"Take the boys," he murmured to her. "Take the boys and sit on the couch."</p><p>"You're with me," she growled against him. "Coming with me."</p><p>"I'll stay right here. Sit on the floor. Won't make any sudden movements." He gave her a tight smile and she shook her head.</p><p>"No. Up. With me. You're with me."</p><p>"Honey-"</p><p>"Stop fucking arguing."</p><p>He closed his mouth, wary and yet terribly aroused. How did she do that to him? </p><p>Kate got to her feet, hanging on to his hand as she rose. He assessed the man with the gun, tried to comprehend what happened next. Carrie had turned to Eastman, leaned in with her fingers hesitating over Eastman's firing arm.</p><p>That was a big no-no. In any training.</p><p>But she was. And he heard her when she murmured to Mark. "You saw his face. He's in love with her."</p><p>"Does that change things?" Eastman clipped back.</p><p>"It does for me." And then her fingers came to his elbow.</p><p>Kate was tugging on his hand, and that desperation was back in her face; he heeded it and got slowly to his feet, thinking that at least Carrie's touch would spoil Eastman's aim. When he was standing, he realized his wrists were purpled with bruises where he'd strained against them, or she had, and Eastman was studying him.</p><p>And the bruises.</p><p>Eastman had to know something. Something.</p><p>"I need your help," he admitted. "We need your help. For this." He held up his bruised wrist in supplication and example, and even as he did the violent purple was subduing into that healing yellow.</p><p>He always bruised badly, his elixir-enhanced blood rushing to the site of any wound or blow. He had used that to his advantage in the past, making his enemy think he'd been more fatally struck than he was.</p><p>Eastman's face closed off. "For what." Flat. Unhelpful.</p><p>"You know for what." He opened his mouth to continue but Eastman turned his eyes to Kate.</p><p>And Castle shut up. Because this wasn't about him, though clearly the violence and distrustwere. Eastman would hear it from Kate and no one else.</p><p>If Kate could tell it.</p><p>He stood on his feet in the house of a man who called him enemy, but everything depended on Kate.</p><p>And she needed him. That was clear. And her need was so - blatant - that it made Eastman nervous and wary because it looked bad.</p><p>Castle didn't care; she needed him. And Kate had to tell the story in order for Eastman to consent to help. Eastman knew something. So the story had to be told.</p><p>He turned slowly into Kate, no sudden movement, just like he'd joked to her, and he wrapped his arms around her. She was dragged against him, but he felt the way her body melted to his, reformed around him, and the press of her fist into his lower back, the other fist at his nape.</p><p>"I love you," he breathed into her ear. Only for her, not for show, not for anyone else. "You can do this."</p><p>"With you-"</p><p>"I'm here," he promised. "But some things are better from your mouth." He paused long enough to press his hips to hers, to stroke his fingers just up against her ribs. "Don't we both know it."</p><p>She laughed, buried her face against his neck, but the laughter was there. Shaky, her fists gripping his shirt, but laughter nonetheless.</p><p>"We do," she said, and then she flattened her palms against him and pushed him away.</p><p>She stood alone before Eastman.</p><p>-----</p><p>He had tried palming the scalpel while he hugged her, but fuck if he hadn't found it. Not in her hands anymore, disappeared within her clothing again, and how she hadn't cut herself, he didn't know.</p><p>Maybe she had. Tonight, if they survived this, he was going to do a thorough inspection. He'd make it sexy, of course - well, she would make it sexy - but he was going to pay better attention, he was going to be good for her.</p><p>He turned his head and saw Eastman with the gun, that preternatural calm that had always unnerved those who trained with him, those who fought against him. It had never unnerved Castle. He had adopted it for himself, though he struggled now to recall it, to use it like a cloak.</p><p>"Sit," Eastman said, gesturing to the couch with his chin. His eyes didn't stray from Castle.</p><p>Kate glanced at Castle, still standing on her own, though her eyes tracked his movement until he had sunk into the cushions of the couch. Entirely incongruously, James came to him to be lifted up, his arms raised and his face expectant, and Castle didn't know what to do.</p><p>If he offered his son comfort and a lap, he was using him as a shield, just as Eastman had done, the very thing that had set Kate off. </p><p>It wasn't Kate in charge right now, though. It was Beckett. He saw that clearly enough.</p><p>"Take him," she said, jerking her head to him.</p><p>He reflexively reached, dragged James up into his lap, hands curled protectively over the boy's body. James wriggled in his grip and settled his head back against Castle's chest, and suddenly the churning his guts that Castle had never felt before on mission - that ceased.</p><p>He took in a ragged breath and glanced down at his son, but James didn't look put out or uncomfortable or even all that tired. It was close to naptime, and he was mid-level baby tired, but not just dampened the emotions of everyone in the room tired.</p><p>But James might have broken the wormhole that existed between himself and Kate, the black void that rushed all those terrible emotions back and forth between them so that his head and heart screamed. It was gone now. Gone.</p><p>He touched a kiss to the top of James's head, straightened up to accept Wyatt now into his arms as Kate handed him over.</p><p>He wondered if she was doing this on purpose. One moment she was ready to claw his eyes out because he'd yanked her back within his protection, leaving Wyatt alone, and the next she was shoving the boys into him right in front of the gun. He didn't get it, what the difference was, except just her choice.</p><p>Her choice to put the boys in harm's way. Or her choice to give him the boys. He didn't know what it meant, only that it was happening.</p><p>Her fingers caressed the side of James's face, and then she turned back around and stood before Eastman and Carrie.</p><p>"Can we - start over please?"</p><p>Carrie immediately stepped forward. "Yes. We're starting over. Mark, put the gun on the side table and sit." She handed over the hedgehog to Kate, who took it with a roughness that surprised Castle, but she passed it back to him as well.</p><p>She was doing it on purpose. But for what reason? Because she couldn't maintain her strength of persona if she held on to the boys, or was it merely to give Castle all the vulnerable and precious things?</p><p>And where the fuck has she put that scalpel? She must have found it packing, blanked out like she did when blindsided by the recent past, and hidden it on herself for an emergency.</p><p>Carrie sat in the chair pulled right up next to the couch, shocking the entire hell out of him, and obviously Mark as well, because Eastman strode back into the middle of things. Though he had, in all fairness, left the gun on the writing table against the wall. "Care."</p><p>"Sit down, Mark." </p><p>He clenched his fists, but he sat down hard in an armchair - near the gun table - and gritted his teeth.</p><p>Kate was compact and tense standing before the couch. She wavered for a moment, there was a free chair across the couch, opposite of him, but she didn't take it. She came and sank down beside him, where she obviously wanted - needed - to be.</p><p>His heart beat foolishly hard, and he unwound an arm from James to lay his hand on her knee. A moment only, aware of how Eastman looked at him.</p><p>But apparently, Beckett too was aware. Because now he saw himself as Eastman must, entirely whipped and under her control, sitting docilely with two chattering babies in his arms - plus a hedgehog that was strange and squirmy - with Kate's mere presence at his side giving him the rush of confidence and sentimentality that no son of John Black would ever endure.</p><p>Damn. She had been trained. Very well. And part of her knew things that no twenty year old would.</p><p>Castle allowed his shoulders to slump, fractionally, so that he was bowed in over the boys. His posture now gave the appearance of concession and surrender, and he knew his bulk, his breadth of shoulders, often made people think the opposite.</p><p>Carrie relaxed, smiled at him, and took the hedgehog back. Which took Wyatt with it, the boy crawling up into her lap now to hold the thing. Castle found his smile and made himself purposefully soft in it, his adoration for Wyatt's quick, childlike betrayal shining through. It was there anyway, it was real, but Castle now could manage to bring it to bear on the situation at will. Rather than being a slave to the newness of all these feelings. His ease made Carrie at ease, and she had murmured words for Wyatt in his ear, smiles passed between them.</p><p>Eastman, however, did not relax.</p><p>Kate had to start talking.</p><p>But he couldn't prompt her.</p><p>She rubbed her palms on her thighs and sat up a little straighter. He could feel her gearing herself up, mentally preparing, and he was a little bit entranced by the change in her, the difference. How she could don these personas so easily.</p><p>She was either very good or she was fractured. Mentally. For her sake, he hoped the former, but also for her sake, he had to be aware of the latter.</p><p>With the change in her body posture, Eastman definitely responded. The stronger Beckett looked, the more at ease Eastman seemed to grow. </p><p>But what came out of her mouth next was anything but strong.</p><p>"You saw my dad?"</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eastman sat forward in the chair and regarded her carefully; she could see the way he studied her. She didn't care. She just - her dad?</p><p>"I met with him, yes. Why - haven't you gone to see him for yourself? At least told him you-"</p><p>"He's dead," she blurted out. If she had stopped to think about it too long, she would never have gotten it out. Those words. "He was - Black had him killed too."</p><p>Eastman's face went white. "Killed."</p><p>Kate pressed her hands against her knees, nodded briefly. "They're buried together though." She cleared her throat. "My mom and dad. I saw - their graves."</p><p>"I - yes - I had heard about your mom from Jim. I tried telling him-. You... you're going to have to explain this, Kate. That's not what I knew of you when we - when you were under my training."</p><p>"But you talked to my dad," she murmured, realized she could breathe. She was breathing. "You saw him and... he was looking for me?"</p><p>"Hell," Eastman grunted. He sounded, strangely, a lot like Castle. She glanced over at the man sitting stiffly hunched on the couch beside her. He hadn't seemed to notice. </p><p>She let out a steadier breath. "Did he seem - well, I guess he wasn't okay, was he?"</p><p>Eastman gave her a bleary look, his eyes smudged. "No. Hell. He wasn't okay. That's why I contacted him, told him he had to - stop running ads, at least take the billboard down."</p><p>"Billboard." Her face plastered in New York. One of those girls gone missing. Another runaway maybe. The police wouldn't have been able to do much, even if it could be proved she'd been there with her mother that night in the alley. No way to prove it though. No way.</p><p>"I know that he did, actually, take the billboard down. And the ads stopped. But I thought he'd - figured it out. Believed me. That you were in training for the CIA. How - naive of me. Of course, Black had him killed. I... oh, God, I got him killed."</p><p>Castle startled beside her, a violence to his movement that had everyone tensing. Kate clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking. "You - what?"</p><p>"I contacted him. I knew better. I thought I'd convinced him, thought I was wrong about you. But he kept looking, didn't he? And now he's dead."</p><p>"He kept looking," Castle said then. His voice held accusation, and Kate pressed her hands into her stomach, forced down another breath. "He kept looking, Eastman, because his daughter was kidnapped and his wife was murdered. How you could have ever left her there-"</p><p>"I didn't know." Eastman shook his head, once, a hard shake. Kate leaned forward, struggling for each breath, but it almost seemed as if the next words he said would give her the air to fill her lungs, his words and no one else's. "It was like every other place of his, every other program. I only got the select few, those with promise, and I trained them. I had you, you asshole, and so why in the world would you think I'd know differently?"</p><p>He hadn't known. Of course not. He'd been doing his job.</p><p>She winced and rubbed her thumb at her sternum, the place where her lungs seemed to hook painfully on her bone. "Castle's not that man any more," she said. "If he ever was. Black can... do things. To make you not yourself."</p><p>"Fuck." </p><p>This time it was Castle's soft curse, but it smoothed over the rough edges in her, as if his acknowledgement meant she wasn't, actually, crazy. It was all true. It had happened to him too.</p><p>"Kidnapped," Eastman said slowly. Another hard shake of his head, one hand running through his hair. "Your father was a good man. Kind when - when God knows he had reason not to be. We met at Duke's Diner down-"</p><p>"I know that place," she breathed. Her heart was trembling.</p><p>"Had coffee. He was - looked like you do now, I guess, holding himself together by sheer force of will alone. I remember telling him I'd seen you not but three months ago - at the time - and he - cried. Not sobs just - tears in his eyes and he apologized for them and said, please continue."</p><p>She let out a fast breath, sucked in another one. Please continue. His courtroom phrase. She'd heard it when she'd been giving excuses for why she'd sneaked into the house after curfew. Calm and interested in seeing how she'd get out of this one.</p><p>He'd been sad, but more than that, he'd been mad. Angry. At Eastman for this conversation and that cavalier way he'd said he had seen her. Mad the exact same way Castle was beside her, vibrating with that echo of you left her there to him.</p><p>"I told him I had a job with Military Intelligence - Carrie, that much is true - but that I did training for CIA recruits. Special Forces training, agents that weren't looking to be analysts. And that you were there, I had you for 73 days."</p><p>"Seventy-three," she whispered, locking it in place in her head. The timeline of - everything. She tilted her head back on the couch and breathed.</p><p>"You impressed me, Kate. You had heart. Not many did by the time they got to me. I never forgot you. And I did my best to let your family know you were alive and safe and-"</p><p>"Not fucking safe," Castle growled, jerking forward so suddenly that Kate startled and had to wind her arm through his, bodily bring him back down to the cushions. "She wasn't safe. Holy fuck. How can you possibly have thought she was safe with him? How can you have seen her and thought that any of that was at all okay?"</p><p>"You were safe with him," Eastman snarled. "Your brother Alex. I had him too. Ben. Ben fucking washed out before he made it to me but your father said, just a little. Try him out. If I had gone easy on Ben your God-damned father would still be breaking that boy over his knee."</p><p>Kate felt Castle go very very still. She wondered if even he knew anything about this. Alex. Ben.</p><p>"You knew that," Castle said harshly. "You knew all of that and yet you get her and you leave her there."</p><p>"She was a thousand times more capable than either of those boys, and she wanted it."</p><p>Wanted it?</p><p>"I have never seen someone so focused, so drilled down. I told her one thing, she had five new ways to use it, and use it effectively. The neck to eye move is mine, yes, but I bet she put her own spin on it."</p><p>"She's not a fucking CIA agent," Castle bellowed. "She's a girl."</p><p>Kate stared at him. Took James out of his arms and put the boy unceremoniously down on the couch at her other side. She turned back to Castle and shoved him hard in the chest. "Fuck you."</p><p>His came to hers, startled and hurt, wounded, and yet he was the one throwing around labels here. Calling her a girl. </p><p>"Baby," he murmured, catching her fists before she could hit him again. "I only meant-"</p><p>"I can handle myself."</p><p>His face went blank, and it would've been comical had she not known exactly what he was thinking. And he was right. She had absolutely no handle on herself.</p><p>"Love, you want to be a CIA agent, baby, I will mentor you myself," he husked. His head dipped and his lips touched hers, briefly, but it was electric. All through her body. "I only meant you never asked for it. You never wanted it. You were kidnapped, honey. You were trapped. There was no other choice."</p><p>But for so long she had told herself - I choose this. She had told herself she was doing it to get Coonan, to get Black, to fuck them over when she got out. She had told herself she could escape but she ought to learn as fast and as hard as she could first, use it against them later.</p><p>And then later had been too late, and she'd been pregnant.</p><p>"Did you ever have a choice, Richard?"</p><p>At Eastman's voice, Castle's head jerked up, though his hands still held hers trapped against his chest. </p><p>Eastman had his elbows on his knees and he rubbed both hands down his face, shaking his head. "No one ever has a choice when it comes to John Black. No one. If she seemed more desperate, harder, if she had seemed more broken even, how was that to have clued me in? When you came to me - God, son - when you came to me, it took all I had not to strangle the man myself. Maybe I should have. Maybe if I had done for him then, when you showed up soulless and empty, maybe all of this would never have happened."</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle dropped Kate’s hands.</p><p>Soulless and empty.</p><p>She glanced back at him, the corner of her mouth twisted, like she was trying damn hard not to cry.</p><p>Soulless and empty.</p><p>James grunted from the other side of Kate and climbed onto her lap, and then over her thighs and back to Castle’s lap instead. He stood up in the circle of Castle’s arms and hung on to his shirt, fingers fisted at Castle’s shoulders.</p><p>“Daddy.”</p><p>“Hey, buddy,” he said, clearing his throat. He leaned his forehead into James’s and took a deeper breath. James smiled shyly back at him and got a foot up against Castle’s ribs. He took the hint and wrapped James up in his arms, brought him to his chest in a tight hug.</p><p>“Daddy, hi.”</p><p>He laughed softly, surprised, as he always was whenever James or Wyatt brought out new words. “Hi, James.”</p><p>“Okay. That’s a good place to stop.” </p><p>“Stop?” Castle glanced up, saw Carrie standing with Wyatt in her arms, the hedgehog curled between them. </p><p>She gestured between Castle and Kate. “I’m doing the math, and these are sweet boys.” She bounced Wyatt on her hip, smiling at him, rubbing noses. “Aren’t you cute? But there’s so much more to your mommy’s story, isn’t there? Like how’d you and your brother get here. Not much time, is there?”</p><p>Kate stiffened.</p><p>Carrie straightened up, patting Wyatt’s back as he cooed over the hedgehog. “I have a feeling this is going to take a while. So how about we adjourn to the kitchen, get dinner started. Mark, you need to get the grill going back there.” She smiled, a tender thing that warmed the room. “And you both could help, Kate, Rick. Either here or out there with Mark. Though I might suggest not leaving the boys alone. And I’m not talking about these sweethearts.”</p><p>Castle and Mark’s eyes caught and clashed and Mark ran a hand down his face with a sigh. But he stood up, hiking up his jeans, his hands on his hips. It seemed to signal something, and Castle stood too, wondering what happened now.</p><p>The gun was on the table. Mark had taken the hedgehog back from Carrie and so Wyatt was leaning out from Carrie’s arms after it. Eastman caught Wyatt’s little hand and pushed his thumb to the boy’s palm, kissed it. The gun was right there on the side table near the door.</p><p>It was all clashing right now, two worlds colliding. </p><p>“Could we - agree then?” Castle said. He cupped the back of James’s head. “You’ve got my kid’s heart with that hedgehog. Can we just agree to call a truce?”</p><p>“What would that truce entail?” Mark asked, cupping the hedgehog in one hand up against his chest, but looking nonetheless completely in control. “Might it include calling off your watchdog out there, blacking out the cameras?”</p><p>No. But. “Would he be welcome to dinner?” Castle shot back. Adding Colin would give them the numbers. And an extra pair of hands to grab the boys if it came to that.</p><p>Though that wasn’t exactly the spirit of truce.</p><p>“He might be,” Eastman said, cocking his head. “Why don’t you go ask him?”</p><p>And reveal his communication methods? Reveal the location of those cameras-</p><p>“He’s trussed up in the barn. Short walk.”</p><p>“Well, damn.”</p><p>Kate laughed. Laughed, and she rose to her feet and tugged on James’s foot, leaned in to kiss the boy’s cheek. “Alright, he got us, huh? Hey, baby, why don’t you and me go get Uncle Colin and bring him in to help with dinner?”</p><p>“Colin?” Eastman said harshly. “Well, damn is right. That’s the asshole that fought like a crazy man out there? Makes sense. He was shit at self-control.”</p><p>Kate took James out of his arms and hugged him close, still grinning even though Castle felt gut-punched. “Looks like you know the whole family,” she said. “I think you have more story to tell, too. Dinner sounds like a good idea, Carrie, thank you. And Castle?”</p><p>He lifted an eyebrow, still not yet caught up, left back there somewhere.</p><p>“Castle, love, you boys play nice.” She leaned in and touched his cheek, and then her forehead came to press against his chin. “Please. This is important to me.”</p><p>“Of course,” he promised. “Anything. I will do anything for you, Kate.”</p><p>-----</p><p>"I'll go with you in case he's set booby traps," Castle told her, hanging onto her by a belt loop. </p><p>She glanced back, James curled up in her arms, and saw the look on Eastman's face. It seemed very likely. "Traps. Okay." Shit. If she'd just walked right in there with her son in her arms and Colin had rigged something-</p><p>"Not likely," Eastman called to them. "He wasn't conscious when I left him. Breathing, but knocked out cold."</p><p>Castle nodded, but Kate felt her heart speed. She just hadn't expected Eastman to be so - covert operative. So capable and willing to use the tools at his disposal no matter what that meant. She should have realized - he was, after all, protecting his wife and his home - but she hadn't thought a guy on the perimeter would be in danger from Eastman.</p><p>She hadn't thought her sons would be either. She still didn't really believe they were, but there had been a moment, and worse - with Castle kneeling on the floor - she'd seen everything crashing down around her.</p><p>"I don't want us to get separated," Castle said into her ear as they descended the porch steps. "Bad enough Wyatt's in there with them, though I think Carrie would take care of him-"</p><p>Kate froze, halted in midstep in the dirt. "Castle," she croaked.</p><p>"He's fine. It's fine. I'm more concerned about you and me, Kate. We get separated and I can't protect you, you can't protect me."</p><p>She had this curling, tickling sensation at the base of her neck, like he was lying to her. But why? </p><p>"Come on. Let's get Colin, see if we can't wake him up. If not, I'll go back for Eastman and drag him inside."</p><p>"Why are you lying to me?"</p><p>He startled, jerking back to her like a yoyo on a string. "Lying? I'm not lying."</p><p>"I can tell when you're lying."</p><p>"No." His face was completely open, so very well done that if she was just looking at him, she'd think he was being truthful. "I'm not. How - what would I be lying about?"</p><p>She squirmed her shoulders, James clinging to her by the neck. "I can feel it, Castle. Like hesitation, shame, something. I can feel-"</p><p>"There's no-" His face clouded. "I don't think I'm lying, Kate. I don't know what to tell you." </p><p>She could feel it. Every sensation of it, how he was desperate to have her safe, safe, safe, how he wanted to hide her somewhere and do this alone but it was impossible, how he was aching to protect her. It was so sharp inside her that breathing was painful. And the words that came out of his mouth weren't from that part of his heart. She could feel it.</p><p>We get separated and you can't protect me. Was that it? He didn't think she could protect him anyway, did he? That he was a lost cause, that his life was already forfeit and he'd sacrifice it gladly to protect her.</p><p>Was that why it felt like lying? Why she'd jumped immediately to that conclusion? Colin had said that the emotions had no names, that he'd had to figure it out for himself what sensations meant to the people who were feeling them. Because there were just so many many emotions, so many sensations, and no one acted on every single vagrancy of feeling.</p><p>She was going to have to figure him out, this man. He didn't think it was lying; it wasn't lying, not really. She just felt the shame below it, the desperation sour in her stomach as it soured his. He just felt things, and she was going to have to learn if she wanted to keep her own head straight.</p><p>Castle cleared his throat. "Eastman's right about me."</p><p>She halted before the barn doors, caught by his words. "What."</p><p>"That's - who I am. I could be lying to you, Kate, and I wouldn't even know it. Nothing is nailed down in my life, nothing is ever true. My name isn't even real. If I'm lying - it's just a habit, it's my life, and he's right. Black emptied me out. There's nothing-"</p><p>She shut him up with her mouth, pressing hard against his to stop the flow of broken words. He sucked in a harsh breath through his nose and opened for her, fumbling to get an arm around her and hold James so the boy wouldn't fall.</p><p>She growled into her kiss, demanding things from him, wanting things that brought her blood up to her skin and made her inside thighs feel raw. She gripped the nape of his neck and trusted he'd keep James, and she fought him with everything she knew she had.</p><p>It was only her body, it was all she had, but it was such a violated thing that it felt precious, it felt like she could actually give him something that mattered.</p><p>He broke from her first, panting, his lips reddened and wet with her. His tongue touched the corner of his mouth where she'd drawn blood. "What was that for?" he husked.</p><p>"You're not him. You're not empty and soulless, Rick Castle. You have poured your whole being into me. From the beginning. What I feel from you is - is feeling, your feelings, even if I can't figure them out yet, and God does that feel good, feels good to have someone."</p><p>He stared at her.</p><p>She knew she was breathing hard, that it felt like a panic talk to say this stuff, but he'd been wounded too. He'd grown up with Black as a father and his damage was great. But she didn't have the words, everything she had was borrowed from him, and she knew it. "I - have you, don't I? Ride or die, Castle."</p><p>"You know you have me. I just don't - know that having me is good for you."</p><p>Her mouth twisted as her heart did too. "How can you say that? You saved my life. You are saving my life."</p><p>Castle seemed to - collapse. He folded in over her, encompassing her completely with his head buried against the side of her face, in her neck and hair, the baby crushed between them. He was shaking. His lips were warm against her skin.</p><p>She cupped the back of his head and stroked her thumb over his ear. She had to remember this, she needed to remember this. Castle needed words. He figured out so much on his own, instinctively, that it was easy to overlook the more direct approach. He needed her to say she was here, she had him too. Crew. Such a simple way to express something so complicated and claiming.</p><p>"You must know," she said against him, into him. James was squirming between their chests, but she couldn't let go, not yet. "You must know, Castle. Don't you feel it? It's the same for me."</p><p>"I do, I do, I just - wishful thinking. I'm good at making things up, I'm a liar by nature-"</p><p>"Trade," she interrupted.</p><p>"Trade, then," he husked. "But it's become second nature. And I just don't want to be lying to myself. Or you."</p><p>"This isn't a lie," she promised. She knew it was a promise too, and that was scary and perilous, but how could she not immediately jump when he was prostrated before her? "Believe that. This isn't a lie. You touch me and I can't - nothing will ever be the same after you."</p><p>He sucked in a breath that echoed between them and the hand at her back pulled her hard - too hard; James yelped - but he didn't let her go. James mewled and hooked an arm around Castle's neck, climbed his father's ribs to get free of them. Castle released her with one arm to keep James steady, out of the way, and Kate let herself press chest to chest with him just like he wanted.</p><p>"There will be no after," he growled against her cheek. And then his mouth was brutal, punishing, and she felt the gratefulness in it, the way he claimed and claimed as his right, so right, exactly how it should be between them. He took and she was somehow more. He grabbed from her and she found herself filled.</p><p>"I want you," she whined, words muffled by his tongue. "Want you, I want-"</p><p>"Yes," he growled. Short and sharp. "Yes."</p><p>"But."</p><p>"Colin. James. Eastman. Fuck, too many fucking people, I want to touch you so badly, Kate."</p><p>"We can sneak out to the barn later and-"</p><p>"Hell."</p><p>She cried out in dismay as he ripped his mouth from hers, putting her away, his eyes turquoise. James was practically slung over his shoulder and she laughed, felt the way her clothes were skewed on her body, her own fingers tucked into the waistband of his pants, just that fast and without her even knowing it.</p><p>His hand at her belly traced a circle around her navel and she flinched, sucking in a breath that didn't have enough air. Pain and pleasure, though the pain was a surprise. Something dark moved over Castle's face that she couldn't identify and then he withdrew from her. </p><p>"We need to get Colin. Awake. And then - make dinner or - fuck, however we do this, I don't know. But everything has to be told, Kate. We have to come clean about it."</p><p>"Not the boys," she said back, immediately, instantly no.</p><p>He swallowed. "O-okay. Not the boys. Well. They think the worst of me for knocking you up, Kate, and I don't care, let them. But you. They think you've been - unduly influenced by me. Brainwashed. And while I don't give a rat's ass about what they think of me, it's important that they know you are your own."</p><p>"Brainwashed? For what? Knocking me up? But Castle they know I was - kidnapped during-" Her heart plummeted. "Oh."</p><p>"Eastman wants me away from you. And I can't blame him, thinking as he does. But it means whatever they do to me, wherever they put me, they're going to try to separate us. It's fine if - if I can still see you, get to you. But I won't let them take you anywhere. I won't let them take you somewhere-"</p><p>"No," she cried out. "No, they can't - I won't - no."</p><p>"He wants to break up my harem," Castle said, a sad twitch of his lips. "So he might get the boys away from me and then y-you after. I-"</p><p>"I won't go. He'll - we can make him understand. Why wouldn't he understand?"</p><p>"You said - not to tell him about the boys?"</p><p>She blinked, lost for a moment before she understood. "No, oh. No, baby. I meant the - way they feel things, and you and me. And Colin. That can't - it seems a very bad idea to start talking about that with people who aren't... us. Not - oh God - I'll have to tell them about the pregnancy - about all of them - all... all of them. What I did."</p><p>He curled his hand at the back of her neck and yanked her back against him. "You had no choice, Kate. Remember? No choices, there were no other choices in that facility. Everyone sees that, knows that. Eastman even said it - how we all are no longer guilty. None of us are guilty in this, Kate, because Black had it set up perfectly. So damn perfectly."</p><p>"None of us," she whispered, swallowing hard, trying to gather the frayed edges of her self-control amidst the storm of his. "None of us... even Eastman. Not guilty, can't be blamed for this."</p><p>Castle growled, but she knew she had him. She knew it. She'd already gained his promise, but the animosity and the anger - she needed his heart. </p><p>"Damn it, Kate."</p><p>"If I'm not - if I don't have guilt for killing those babies - I killed them, Castle, and the men before that, one of the trainers, I killed them - and if that's not my fault-"</p><p>"Fuck."</p><p>"Let's get Colin," she whispered at his ear. "And when we're free of this, or at least somewhere alone - I want you. I want you so badly. Say you'll have me."</p><p>"Always."</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate touched the top of Colin’s head as he sat bowed over on the couch, face buried in his hands. He flinched when she made contact, jerking away from her. But his chin lifted and his eyes came to hers with a crazed expression. “Can’t. Can’t. Don’t touch me.”</p><p>She withdrew her hand, stung for a moment before she realized - when they were touching, he felt her in ways he couldn’t block out. Neither could Castle, but with the two of them, it was only them, and maybe the boys. </p><p>Colin didn’t want the whole world in his head. And right now, he was struggling with it.</p><p>“Anything I can get for you?” she said quietly, squatting down before him. Not touching. “Carrie has pain reliever and ice.”</p><p>“A fucking scotch. Does she have that?”</p><p>“I have that,” came Carrie’s voice from over Kate’s shoulder. She turned and found Carrie heading for them with a pack of ice in a plastic bag and wrapped with a kitchen towel. She handed it over to Colin, who winced and placed it just below his right ear. Eastman had really gotten him. Surprised him. He’d been stunned to come-to in the barn with Castle waving smelling salts under his nose.</p><p>Which Eastman had on hand. Interesting life these spies lived. Kate was - fascinated.</p><p>“Let me get you a drink. You want the lights turned down? I can set just the lamp.”</p><p>Colin quirked his lips at her. “You have a lot of experience with concussions?”</p><p>“No. Just wounded animals.”</p><p>Colin actually laughed, a quick huff that nevertheless eased the tension between them. “Alright, I deserved that. A drink and the lights - thanks. That would help.”<br/>Carrie turned to leave and Colin nudged his shoe into Kate’s knee. “You go, darling. I’ve got to ride this wave till it’s over. Easier if you’re distracted.”</p><p>She nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect this to go... quite this way.”</p><p>“It’s not your fault my old trainer got the drop on me. That’s my responsibility. Go, go. I can pass it off as concussion symptoms only so long.”</p><p>She hurriedly got to her feet, watching Colin like a hawk as he eased back against the arm of the couch. He’d been only mildly concerned with the way things had changed, seemed enough at ease now that she could release some of her own anxiety.</p><p>She let out a breath and moved to leave him to it, but Colin called her name. She turned back and he was looking at her.</p><p>“You weren’t wrong about Eastman.” Colin adjusted the ice pack, his eyes screwed up in concentration or pain, she couldn’t tell. “He’s not going to kill us. I’m not sure he can. But more than that, he feels responsible for you.”</p><p>“He does?” she blurted out.</p><p>“As far as that goes,” Colin grimaced. “And you know it’s a guessing game right now, Kate. But I thought you should know you weren’t off the mark. Safe for now.”</p><p>“Thank you.” She hesitated though, not yet willing to leave. “Are you sure I can’t help somehow?”</p><p>“Go - you - shit - you don’t like being out of Castle’s range, I get it. Ah, hell, but maybe you could bring me Wyatt?”</p><p>She straightened up, a little confused. “Wyatt?”</p><p>“Nice and easy. Simple. I bet he and I could take a nap right here.”</p><p>“Are you supposed to take a nap with a concussion?”</p><p>“Kate,” he gritted out. “You asked how you could help. Just-”</p><p>“I’m going,” she muttered, backing away. She knew he could get nasty when his control was off, and she knew that the concussion made it harder for him to get that control back. But it still hurt.</p><p>Colin. Somehow it was possible for Colin to hurt her feelings. How had that happened? When? And why hadn’t she been able to keep herself protected against it?</p><p>She passed Carrie in the doorway to the kitchen, the woman coming through with a tumbler of something strong. Kate nodded to the back porch where Castle had taken both boys out with Eastman to get the grill fired up.</p><p>“If you don’t mind - I’m going to see if I can get the boys to take a nap. They usually do after lunch and Colin - um - he’s a good baby-sitter.”</p><p>Carrie gave her a long look, as if she could see right through Kate. As if she knew, somehow, the real reasons. But she couldn’t possibly. “You do whatever you need to, sweetheart.” She pulled Kate in so quickly for a hug that Kate didn’t even have time to flinch. Fierce, strong, insistent embrace. “You let me know what I can do. I know none of this is easy for you.”</p><p>“Nothing, there’s nothing,” Kate said quickly, but it was already too late. Her heart was swelling with such gratitude she might cry.</p><p>No wonder Colin wanted her as far away as possible.</p><p>-----</p><p>From the corner of his eye, Castle watched Kate with James. She'd been kicked out of the kitchen, she had said, for ineptitude, but she had left Wyatt with his brother and come to sit on the chaise lounge at the back porch. The grill was closer to the barn than the house, and the distance seemed to stretch every time he looked, but she was at least within his view. </p><p>James was plastered over her chest, must be sleeping, and she had her fingers in his hair, combing through the curls at his neck. To say Castle was entirely envious was an understatement. But though they had a truce, he couldn't take that kind of rest right now.</p><p>He and Eastman were sounding each other out, though they had tacitly agreed in an unspoken glance of eyes that none of their talk would center around the story Beckett had to tell. But there was background, details that could be filled in to explain how Castle became part of this story.</p><p>It was halting work, but the grill was smoking low and the steaks had a ways to go, so Castle did his best to be both painfully honest and also, hopefully, sympathetic. He knew how to tell a story, he knew how to bring people to his side. He just had to do it here. </p><p>For her sake.</p><p>"How about you keep your eyes on me," Eastman said into his lapse.</p><p>Castle sucked in a breath of smoke, crossed his arms over his chest. "It's not like that. And there's no way I'm leaving her unprotected." He gave Eastman a baleful look - the man had crossed their unspoken line - and Eastman turned the steaks, not maintaining eye contact.</p><p>Which was a concession, he thought.</p><p>"I trained you better than this," Eastman said then. Thoughtfully, flipping the meat.</p><p>"Better than a crap plan to insinuate ourselves in your home and confront you at the door? Yeah, you did. But."</p><p>He'd run up against that invisible line again. And Eastman heard it and nodded. Said nothing about how he'd trained her, which was probably a good idea right now if he wanted Castle to keep his cool.</p><p>"You were following in your father's footsteps when I trained you."</p><p>Castle cleared his throat, nodded. "I was." Emphasis on the past. "Colin wasn't."</p><p>"No," Eastman said slowly. "No, I guess he wasn't."</p><p>Point for Castle. That was one, at least. "And he was - is - something of a hellraiser. But the last few years it came with a focus. A purpose."</p><p>"Rebellion is a juvenile endeavor."</p><p>"Not for Colin. You trained him as well, and so you might know the tactics he employs."</p><p>"Ah." Not a point, but he'd scored a hit - he had made Eastman see that Colin wasn't just some surly teenager who was escaping his father's rule. "Alright. So Colin started it. And what? You finished it?"</p><p>Castle worked the two-pronged fork into the meat, flipping his side of the expansive grill while Eastman did his own. Invisible lines were everywhere. "No. Not me. Her."</p><p>A noise in Eastman's throat as he remembered, presumably, what he'd said before about the throat and eye combination. It was a signature, and while Castle hadn't seen the signature at that moment, when Beckett had ID'd Eastman, he'd realized what it'd meant then.</p><p>"So she ended it. And where are you in this then?"</p><p>"Trying to make right," he said, though that was so far off the mark. "Cleaning up."</p><p>"Clean up," Eastman echoed, something hard in his voice. "Clean up coming from the son of Black means something a little different than the rest of us."</p><p>"Well," he admitted. Death and destruction. "There's that."</p><p>"You came here for that."</p><p>Castle worked his jaw, tried to figure out where the line was now. "She told me no. And I promised. So. No."</p><p>Eastman studied him. "Alright. I guess I believe you."</p><p>He let out a breath and nodded. "Still - pissed."</p><p>"Well, son," Eastman laughed, "I believe that for sure."</p><p>Castle nodded, but he didn't find it quite as funny. All these things swirling around and Kate curled up on the chaise lounge with James, looking small. Unprotected. Made his heart beat too hard and his blood rush in his head.</p><p>"I'm not sure you understand just how - how deeply angry I am," Castle said. "Or you wouldn't be laughing."</p><p>Eastman glanced at him, a more thoughtful look this time. Castle didn't move, didn't make a show of aggression; he kept himself the subordinate. Two alpha dogs and Castle knew it wasn't yet his time.</p><p>"Did you know about her?" Eastman asked then.</p><p>His throat burned. "No."</p><p>"I don't believe you."</p><p>"Did you know about her?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Well."</p><p>Eastman huffed. "Timeline, Richard. It betrays you."</p><p>"That's not my story to tell." Besides, the man wouldn't believe him anyway. And it had more of an impact coming from her, more appeal. From him, he just sounded like a blind asshole.</p><p>Eastman growled. "You're going to have to say something to keep me from ripping out your throat, Richard. You're his son. You have been his son from the moment I met you. And now?"</p><p>"And now I'm still his son," Castle admitted. "For all the fucking good - I know I can't run from that. I've done things. But she's made me different."</p><p>"She?" Eastman gave him a side look. "Not those boys."</p><p>"I didn't - know about them," he said. "I met them when Col and I stormed the place. It was just one in a long list of facilities. No way of knowing how it would end up."</p><p>Eastman's eyes were sharp, calculating. He thought he saw perhaps reassessment. That alone seemed more than Castle could deserve.</p><p>"I guess the rest is left to her," Eastman said then.</p><p>Castle let out a breath. "More ways than one." His eyes were on Kate on the back porch, the small profile she made when she was folded up like that. How everything in him ached. He justached. It wasn't fair, everything that was done to her, the story she had to tell.</p><p>"They call you Daddy."</p><p>He startled, somehow struck, painfully struck, by that comment. It hurt. That it was an accusation and not the - the joy he had when those boys claimed him like that.</p><p>"They do," he said. He could not help the pride in his voice, and he wouldn't - he would not - let it be shame. He had done nothing wrong.</p><p>Except bury his head in the sand. Except delude himself into thinking it was natural and right to be exactly what his father cultivated him to be.</p><p>"I won't be like him," he got out. His chest was tight; he felt like he needed to sit down, press his face to the earth. "I won't be like him."</p><p>"Good."</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate shifted when they came back up the porch steps with the grilled steaks. James was sacked out on top of her, but Castle shook his head, his hands filled with plates. </p><p>"Don't move," he murmured. "Come back and get him."</p><p>She could have. She wasn't on restrictions any longer - she wasn't locked up either. But she stayed where she was, half reclined on the chaise, her arms around James. The late afternoon light was beautiful out here, and it spun rainbows through the windchimes, a stripe of orange across her ankle, a wash of purple just below her eye. James was a pattern of greens and blues, and he snuffed in his sleep.</p><p>Castle came back quickly, but instead of taking James from her, he squatted down beside the lounge chair and touched the top of her head, fingers in her hair. "Hey."</p><p>"Hey," she murmured, turning into him and easing James to the cushions. He looked sad. Castle, not James. She smiled at him and reached out, tucked her fingers behind his ear, rubbed the side of his face. Just touching. She felt better for it.</p><p>"Carrie laid a pallet on the floor for him. Wyatt's totally gone - right on top of Col."</p><p>She grinned. "Colin said Wyatt was easy," she whispered.</p><p>He nodded back. "And happy go lucky. Helps."</p><p>"Ever think you'd have been like him? Like Wyatt, I mean. That's just - you. So much of him is you. Only instead of being happy go lucky, you ended up being - well-"</p><p>"Emptied out."</p><p>She smoothed her thumb under his eye. "So laidback that nothing could hurt you. Whatever it is, Castle, it saved you."</p><p>He blinked, his mouth opening but no words came.</p><p>She cupped his cheek. "Saved you so you could save me."</p><p>He came into her then, mouth to hers though it was chaste. Lips to lips, the hard press of the bones of his face against her. She wound her arm around his head and held him there, held him until James stirred and Castle pulled back. He kissed her forehead as he went, slowly slid his arms underneath the boy to take him.</p><p>She felt the warm impression of the baby's weight on her chest even as Castle rose with him. He cupped the back of James's head and gently kissed the curve of the boy's ear. Her heart was squeezing.</p><p>Castle held his hand out carefully to her, and she took it, letting him pull her to standing. His kiss was a breath against her temple. "If my whole life has been in preparation for you, Kate, it's worth it."</p><p>-----</p><p>James peered over the edge of the table, his face smudged with a hard nap's sleep, his lashes long and dark and blinking slowly. He turned his head to Castle and cocked it, as if taking the measure of the whole room. "Mommy?" he said.</p><p>"You don't have to worry about Mommy," Castle said softly, reaching out to comb through the damp curl above his ear. "I got her. We're going to have dinner now. What do you want to eat? What looks good, huh?"</p><p>James pointed down the table, and Kate laughed - she must have been watching them. Castle lifted his eyes and shared a smile with her, though he saw Eastman studying them from the head of the table. Castle swallowed down the irrational urge to punch the man, (no, it was entirely rational; he was not happy), and instead he simply picked up James's plate and began filling it with things he thought the boy could handle.</p><p>"Thanks for all the work you did," Kate said to Carrie. She had Wyatt between her and Eastman, Castle had been settled across the table with James at his side, and Carrie was at the foot. It was a strange arrangement, because it put Carrie within Castle's striking distance - right at his left - but on the other hand, Kate was at Eastman's right hand as well.</p><p>And Wyatt was within Carrie's reach, James within Eastman's. Perhaps it was, actually, very smart.</p><p>Hm.</p><p>Colin was still on the couch, sleeping it off - Castle knew he must have taken something, maybe one of his illegal prescription migraine pills, the opiates, maybe something equally potent - but he was out. Eastman's blow probably had been pretty vicious, but Colin and Castle both recovered too fast from that for it to keep either of them out of the game.</p><p>Colin was bad off, then, because of the emotional current of their party. So Castle couldn't count on him right now.</p><p>"Try this," Castle told his son, setting the plate before the boy who was peering over the table. "Jay, buddy, you're kinda disappearing there. Sit up on your knees?"</p><p>James glanced at him, shy smile. "Daddy."</p><p>"Yeah. That's right. Can you sit up?"</p><p>The boy rocked side to side in his chair, not going anywhere, so Castle leaned over and bodily lifted James, hoping the kid would get the picture. James pinwheeled his feet and they caught on the chair, and he gave Castle a triumphant grin.</p><p>"Good job. Can you sit like that?"</p><p>"Here," Carrie interrupted. "We can get him a phone book. We still have those in these parts."</p><p>Kate shot Castle a curious look, still have those? she mouth at him. She looked bewildered but shrugged before he could even think how to explain the changes in culture in just three years. She was had been distracted from the question by Wyatt's growing insistence for food. </p><p>Castle had gone with potato salad and green beans on James's plate, and Carrie came back with a yellow and a white pages, one for each boy. Eastman took the white and a cushion, helped Wyatt sit up taller in the seat while Castle worked on James.</p><p>When he had managed it, and James was settled, the boy gave him a soft pat on the wrist. "My daddy."</p><p>God, these kids were going to kill him. Between this and Kate, he was so fucking gone. "Yeah," he said, nodding to James, leaning in for a fast kiss against the kid's cheek. He felt stupid; he felt completely unworthy; he felt filled. "Yeah, yours. You eat now, son. Carrie made it for us. Can you say thanks?"</p><p>He nudged the boy's chin toward Carrie and James glanced over at her, gave her a shy smile. "Takes."</p><p>"Oh, God, that's adorable," Carrie said, laughing at herself it seemed, taking her seat at the foot of the table. "You're very welcome, James. You're all welcome. Really."</p><p>Eastman didn't contradict her, though the sentiment had to be somewhat altered by the man's perception of them. Of them as a family, of Castle's right to any of this.</p><p>Shit, it was a dagger in his heart. Kate could stab him literally in the back all she liked and it didn't do to him what this did, the appearance of such terrible - just the idea that Castle could have done this to her.</p><p>"Thank you," he said finally, glancing to Carrie. "We appreciate your willingness to listen. And - hospitality. That's... rare in my line of work."</p><p>"I'm sure," she said carefully, a flick of her eyes to Eastman. "Though I've kept purposefully out of it these last twenty years. Was that a mistake, Mark?"</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Oh, there was a lot more going on here than he'd realized it. Carrie might not exactly be happy with Eastman right now. Wow. He'd missed that entirely.</p><p>"No, Care. Not a mistake. But it's landed on our doorstep and now you'll have to know some things."</p><p>"All things," she stressed, her eyes flashing.</p><p>Kate looked at him, and Castle raised both eyebrows. She nodded as if she knew, as if it made sense to her, and maybe it did. He had no idea. </p><p>"We can start after we eat," Carrie said firmly. "For now, not going to ruin the steaks with this."</p><p>-----</p><p>Looking back on it, Kate felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. As it was, it took her entirely too long to realize exactly what Eastman thought of them.</p><p>Of Castle.</p><p>What it looked like. </p><p>She’d been picking at her steak - it was so tender and tasted amazing, but she was afraid with the anxiety crawling in her stomach and her recent history with food, it wouldn’t sit well - when Eastman, who’d been watching Castle’s every movement like a hawk, had said in a kind of snide aside, “Pretty good set up you’ve got here.”</p><p>Kate’s mind had gone completely blank. She’d had no idea what that meant, like the comment about the phone books, and she’d been about to dismiss as another thing she’d missed out on in the last three years. </p><p>She would have ignored it but for the way Castle had gone absolutely still. </p><p>She had felt the white-hot burn of him all through her, like being branded and seared. Castle had averted his eyes, made an effort at slowly giving James his napkin back from where it had fallen on the floor, and he’d said nothing.</p><p>And then it had fallen into place.</p><p>So now she sat here, dumbfounded, as she realized Mark Eastman thought Castle had raped her. Knowing she was a prisoner of his father, he had seduced her. Brainwashed, hadn’t he said that already? Eastman thought Castle had that facility all set up as what - as his harem?</p><p>“Oh, God,” she croaked.</p><p>Castle’s eyes jerked to her, his body half rising from the chair.</p><p>She put her hand out to stay him, keep him in his chair, and she turned a furious look on Eastman. “Do you think so fucking little of me?”</p><p>Carrie gasped. Eastman sat back in his chair. “Kate.”</p><p>“What the fuck?” she yelled, startling Wyatt so that his mouth dropped open, the fork clattering from his hand. But she shoved her chair back and jerked to her feet, jabbing her finger at Castle. “He didn’t do this to me. You think he - fuck, no wonder he looks at you like he wants to rip out your throat. You think he did this. Or worse, he knew and let it happen. Did nothing to stop it. Holy God, that’s sick.”</p><p>She turned blindly, scraped her stomach against the back of her chair and winced, a smart of pain doing something to clear her head. She hadn’t been this pissed since - since - “He’s the only one who looks at me like I’m not damaged. Well, except the boys, but I don’t think they know better.” She groaned, pressing her hand to her eyes, putting her back to the wall to help hold her up. “They don’t know any better, and thank God their father is him, thank God, you don’t know how many times I stayed awake at night, terrified that it was his. That Black was breeding me for some...”</p><p>Eastman’s face was like wax, Carrie was open-mouthed and flushed with horror, but Castle was staring down at his plate.</p><p>She took a steadying breath and came back to the table, realized she wasn’t helping her case by giving way to the panic that clawed up her throat. She sat down heavily and tried to will Castle to look at her, wanting him to know, to feel it.</p><p>“I was afraid for a long time, afraid it’d be some twisted - a demon, an experiment gone wrong, his spawn you know? - and instead, these two, I had them, and they were perfect and they needed me, wanted only me.” She reached out and picked up Wyatt’s fork, gave it back to him with a crooked smile, the sight of his beaming grin filling her up again.</p><p>He wasn’t clueless, no. But he was good at acting goofy so she’d smile for him. She turned and looked towards Castle, saw James huddled down in his chair. There might be only so much the kid could turn off, and she was sorry for that, but she bet if she could get Castle to look at her, it’d help James too.</p><p>“Rick,” she said quietly, calling to him across the table. He shifted but didn’t look at her. The shame he carried was being misinterpreted by the table as guilt, as complicity, and she didn’t want that. He deserved better. “Rick, love, look at me.”</p><p>His head came up, his sorrow meeting her. She wished she could touch him, but Eastman had purposefully set them apart. Hadn’t Castle warned her they’d try it? She just hadn’t understood.</p><p>She looked to Eastman. “You look at him like he’s a monster, and you’re - protective? - of me, but it’s not like that. I was alone. I was alone until you came and trained me, and you were kind, and it made a difference. I thought it was - I could make it. And then he figured it out, I think, I know he did, because he told me I was a snake in the grass and you’d no longer be coming.”</p><p>“He - did reassign me rather short notice,” Eastman gruffed.</p><p>“And then it was - a matter of survival,” she admitted, ducking her head. </p><p>She glanced at Wyatt, but the boy had been there for it. It wasn’t like she could protect his innocence, protect James’s either. Castle had been right about that. They should know the story. </p><p>“I did some things I’m not proud of, and I hurt people, I killed - I killed my trainer to make a point. And instead of him using me like I thought - instead of being his new recruit - he abandoned me.” She steadied her breathing, sick at the thought of how it still dismayed her, that remembered abandonment. “He left me for weeks and weeks and weeks. Languishing.”</p><p>Kate scraped her hand through her hair, laughing bitterly at the idea. She sounded like a bodice-ripper romance, heaving bosoms and languishing. God. She’d been seriously damaged, hadn’t she?</p><p>“And then he started showing up again. Cat ate the canary. That’s - the thought I had. How strange. How he looked at me like he’d already finished me off and I didn’t even know it yet. You’re a dangerous girl, he said. I couldn’t be trusted. I would have to be restrained. There was something broken with me, I had killed people. I told him that’s what he had wanted from me and he looked at me like I - like how did you get this so wrong?”</p><p>“Fuck,” Castle said thickly. He pressed his fists into his eyes, his shoulders hunched.</p><p>Softly beside her, Wyatt echoed the sentiment. “Uck,” he murmured, and when Kate looked at him, he was watching Castle.</p><p>It hurt him. What had happened to her. It hurt him, and everyone could see it.</p><p>Well, that was infinitely better than the way the story they had been seeing, the vision they’d gotten so wrong about Castle and his lack of honor. </p><p>She had to keep telling it, keep going, for Castle’s sake, so that they didn’t look at him like that. So that they knew how good a man he was.</p><p>She cleared her throat. “After a long time, after weekly tests where he said I was too unstable to be left awake, after I started feeling heavy and weak and my heart rate would pound like crazy for no reason, he came back daily. Daily. He’d never done that before, visited me every day. He gave me these shots, he said I was damaged and I needed help and he was doing this for my sake.”</p><p>“Fuck,” Castle croaked. His head was buried in his hands.</p><p>“And then, every day, he measured - everything. Um. Intimate things that I - couldn’t deny any more. I guess I had just - closed off that part of me, that awareness. But it got to be very obvious, and then I felt - the baby. I felt him moving inside me and then it was - all over. All those old delusions about how I was going to escape, how I was going to be his best and brightest recruit, how I would graduate the program and hunt down the man who had killed my mother. All of it was - dust.”</p><p>Wyatt had laid his fork down before her, as if in offering, as if he knew she was struggling and he thought it might help.</p><p>She touched his little hand and smoothed her thumb over the back of his wrist. “There was no one else. It was just me and him. Doctors, nurses, medics, techs, assistants, people I had thought at one time were other recruits, security - none of them were really real like John Black was real. He was the only one. And I knew the baby was his. I could see it in his face, like more than a cog in a machine, like I was his property now. I was his. There was no one else.”</p><p>-----</p><p>It was Carrie who broke in. Carrie who broke all of them from that awful frozen horror.</p><p>"How old were you, Kate? How long ago was this, sweetheart?"</p><p>Castle shifted, as if moving after an evil spell, his head heavy and his mouth dry. Kate had both hands on the table, staring down at her mostly full plate. She looked like breathing itself was a task that required the utmost concentration.</p><p>"Kate?" Carrie nudged. Her voice was quiet but firm, the voice of a woman who soothed hurt animals. Even Castle felt himself settling, and though he longed to reach across the table and hide her, Kate was still under her own control.</p><p>She flattened her palms to the table. "I was 19 when my mom was murdered and he - took me. I'm - almost twenty-three."</p><p>"Almost," Eastman grunted.</p><p>Something in Castle shriveled, hard and tight, and his chest constricted with it. Made it hard to breathe.</p><p>"Okay, okay, nearly your birthday, then." Carrie gave the table a tender smile, all of them were somehow included. "When did Rick find you?"</p><p>Kate blinked, and Castle's world shrank to only her, the shift of emotion and memory across her face. Would she stay? Confronting the truth of her world head on, would she stay right here with him?</p><p>Would she stay with him at all?</p><p>"I - what do you - three weeks ago?" She glanced to him, as if for confirmation, and her look rang like a death knell.</p><p>Damn it. Only almost twenty-three. A girl who wasn't a girl but still such a girl. Show me, she'd said to him, murmuring in his ear with her artless fingers. </p><p>"Three - weeks?" Eastman hissed. His face was red; he had reached out and caught Kate's wrist and she froze. "Three weeks and now he's daddy?" Castle was a heartbeat from overturning the table and detaching Eastman from her when the man turned blazing eyes to him. "What exactly is the nature of this relationship, Richard?"</p><p>His chest burned. Indignation warred with the knowledge of just how damn young she was, how he himself had felt that twinge of how can this be right? </p><p>"Kate," Carrie said into this, her voice soothing, hypnotic. "Sweetheart, how well do you know this man? You're twenty-two, you were yanked out of your life, your parents, at only nineteen. I think we're just concerned about these choices you've made."</p><p>Kate seemed to draw inward. But instead of what he'd expected, more of that same deep reserve that made her seem small, she lifted her head and glared down the table, her energy a bright and focused beam. "Are you trying to say he's too old for me?" She was rigid with anger. "Are you kidding? What's been done to me - what I've survived - there is no age for that. No one else would ever understand; no one else would want-"</p><p>"No, sweetheart, no. That's not true," Carrie interrupted. "You're not damaged; you're not unloveable. There are people who love you, right now. You're not dependent on him for anything. He saved your life, fine, but you're not beholden to him. You are free."</p><p>Castle was twisted in knots, words deserting him. He wanted to speak but he couldn't - he had to let them open her eyes, had to have Kate without any of the blinders that trauma and youth had cast over her.  </p><p>She had to choose him. </p><p>"Castle," she said, her mouth twisting on his name. She looked desperate.</p><p>He clenched his fists on the table but didn't move.</p><p>"Castle," she whispered.</p><p>He couldn't. She was young. She was a girl. Horrible things had been done to her, and he'd heard how she talked about John Black, like this missing piece, like he'd been everything in her existence, and Castle knew how insidious the man's voice could be, how pervasive. How you just wanted something - anything - to fill the hole Black had dug in your soul.</p><p>"Castle?"</p><p>He wanted her so badly. It was breaking him. He could be better than this; he would be better for her, better than Black who left everyone empty. He wanted to fill her, but it had to be her choice.</p><p>She had gone silent. She was staring at him. What judgments she might make, what truths she saw clearly now, he could only guess. It was eating through him like acid, and the words were clogging his throat, wanting out. Out.</p><p>He had no defense. But he couldn't help it.</p><p>"Kate." Her head came up; he swallowed down the urge for so much more. "No matter what you choose. I will be - do anything you want." He had almost said he'd be here no matter what, but that sounded like a threat. It all sounded like a threat. "Anything. I love you."</p><p>She let out a cry and pressed her hands against her eyes, elbows grinding the wood of the table. Nodded into her fists, her shoulders hunched and shaking. She collapsed in, forehead to her arm, her eyes in the crook of her elbow, and he could hear her gasping for breath.</p><p>He couldn't stand it.</p><p>Castle got up from his chair and came around the foot, avoiding Eastman in case the man tried to prevent him. He came to his knees before Kate and only had to reach out for her - she was there. Falling down into his lap, her arms winding around him, her face pressed to his neck as she cried.</p><p>He closed his eyes to block out everyone else, wrapped his arms tight around her. </p><p>He turned his head into hers, knocking cheeks, hid his face in her as she did in him. "You have to leave, I'll let you go," he husked. "But I'll do anything at all to keep you. I will love you for the rest of my life, Kate, it's unalterable. Fixed. But you - you are freed. It's already over. Never do you have to stay."</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"We can't have this," Eastman said, looming over them.</p><p>Castle ignored him, cradling Kate in his lap on the floor. But Eastman was reaching in for Wyatt, picking him up, and that was when Castle realized both boys were crying.</p><p>"Richard, carry her to the living room. Not on the floor, hell."</p><p>"Mark, watch your mouth," Carrie chided. She had James in her arms, though she looked rather awkward about it. Castle felt Kate's nails in his arms, and he was worried about the damn scalpel, her hunched in like this, so he obeyed.</p><p>He got his feet under him and levered them both up, but it seemed to break the storm. Kate stiffened and dropped her legs, tried to wriggle out of his embrace, wiping at her cheeks now.</p><p>"I'm okay, I'm okay-"</p><p>"Of course you are," he agreed, giving her just enough space to stand, but not enough to not be touching her. "You're gonna make it."</p><p>"I'm okay, I can stand. Tell James I'm okay-"</p><p>"Carrie has him," he said, combing her hair back from her face. She flinched and shied from the room, her cheek turning to press against his shoulder. </p><p>"Carrie's not you," she said. "You get him. He needs you."</p><p>"Right, okay, okay." He unwrapped an arm from her and gestured to Carrie, who looked absolutely crushed by the whole thing. It hit him again, how completely horrifying it was - everything that had been done to her - but Carrie was passing James to him and he knew he had to suppress that feeling.</p><p>James pitched into Kate, arms around her neck, and she gasped and stuttered on her breath, but she held him too. And Castle wrapped them both back up again, his back to the table and hers practically against the wall, but the confined space seemed like it helped her.</p><p>"Wyatt," she croaked.</p><p>"Wyatt," he sighed, and turned to Eastman.</p><p>Mark didn't budge. "No. How about we all go to the couch. Where there's room, and everyone can feel better. All of us, Kate, you hear me?"</p><p>Castle didn't like that, didn't like anyone who refused her, but Kate was nodding against his neck, nodding from the shelter of his body around hers. </p><p>"He doesn't know," she whispered to his jaw. "About the boys. How they need us."</p><p>Castle gritted his teeth, realized she was right. It might look bad, look like they were bad parents or something. But he couldn't find it in himself to care about that. So what? </p><p>"Are you okay?"</p><p>"Can we all just sit down?" she sighed. "I interrupted dinner."</p><p>"You didn't interrupt anything," Carrie said. She was hovering closer than Castle had realized and he wondered if she'd heard that whisper against his skin. "It's just fine. We can finish eating, sure we can. But you know what? How about we rearrange things a little? Rick you take Wyatt's chair here-"</p><p>"Carrie," Eastman sighed.</p><p>"Not a word, Mark. You were wrong. I was right. Let it go."</p><p>Castle was all too happy to sit right beside Kate at dinner, though he saw the way Kate was rolling her eyes at the rearrangement. She might not think she needed it, but she did, right now anyway. She needed his support, someone to stand right at her side, because telling this story wasn't at all easy.</p><p>"Here we go. James is looking better, aren't you buddy? It's scary when Mommy and Daddy are crying, I know."</p><p>He wasn't crying. Was he crying?</p><p>Fuck, he was - had been crying a little. </p><p>"Oh, don't blush," Carrie said, giving him a smile. "It's sweet."</p><p>Kate actually laughed, lifting her chin to look at him. Her thumb came out and swiped at the tracks on his cheek. "It is sweet," she said softly. Her hand dropped back to James, cupping the back of the boy's head, "Is Wyatt okay?"</p><p>He glanced to Eastman with the baby in his arms. "Doing alright. But I bet if you gave him a kiss-"</p><p>Kate let out another little puff of breath like laughter. "You too, I'm sure. Come here."</p><p>He didn't know what she was getting at until her lips were touching his, very softly, very lightly, and his whole world blew up on the inside. </p><p>"Don't let them take you from me," she whispered against his lips.</p><p>"No. Never."</p><p>"Eat. Everyone eat," she said, her voice pitched louder now. "I don't want this to be a thing. I am so done with this being a thing."</p><p>Castle tried to take James from her, but she held on to him, shaking her head and walking around the table all on her own. She settled James in the chair, the booster seat of a telephone book already magically rearranged by Carrie, and when Eastman put Wyatt beside his brother, Kate leaned over and kissed the top of the boy's head.</p><p>She brushed his hair out of his forehead, and Wyatt gave her a trembling little smile, then looked around at the whole table. He smacked his hands against the wood and beamed at them all. "Uck!"</p><p>Even Eastman laughed.</p><p>-----</p><p>She thought dinner was going okay. Not - great, or anything, but Castle’s knee stayed lodged in her thigh, and Carrie and Eastman were helping the boys try various foods. It had turned into a game, Carrie hopping up for one more thing to put on their plates, and Wyatt, of course, making exaggerated faces at everything he stuck in his mouth.</p><p>James was thorough in his investigation, studying his brother’s reaction with his better fine motor skills before James tried anything himself. He seemed to like Cheerios the best, while Wyatt was currently wolfing down an entire jar of black olives. </p><p>Kate herself was eating the black olives from Castle’s salad; he’d made a face at the briny taste and she’d stolen one or two only to have him dump all of them on her plate. In return, she had teased out the chopped celery from her potato salad and given them to him.</p><p>He ate the rest of her steak, but he piled another helping of baked beans in its place while she scowled at him and Carrie laughed. Eastman hadn’t yet seemed to come around to Castle, but he was steadfastly keeping it quiet. </p><p>She knew she had convinced Carrie though. </p><p>At one point during all this food sampling, Carrie got up and left the kitchen, heading for the living room - presumably to check on Colin - but Wyatt whined and leaned out after her.</p><p>Carrie stood arrested in the doorway, looking utterly bewildered by the boy’s raised arms and unspoken demand.</p><p>“You can pick him up,” Kate said. “He likes you.”</p><p>“He’s not very discerning,” Eastman said.</p><p>Kate laughed, startled into it really, because she had been trying not to think the very same thing. Nothing against Carrie at all, not in her meaning, but just that James was picky about who he touched and how far he went away from them. Wyatt was eager to experience people because they didn’t press upon his senses like they did for James.</p><p>But Eastman couldn’t know that.</p><p>Carrie stuck out her tongue at her husband but leaned in and picked up Wyatt. “He’s not wrong though,” she said ruefully. “Sorry, Wyatt, but babies weird me out.”</p><p>“They’re fourteen months,” Kate offered, trying to help. “Almost toddlers. And really, weaned on the elixir, they’re so advanced for their age.”</p><p>Carrie went still, holding Wyatt awkwardly against her chest. “The - elixir?”</p><p>“His program,” she explained, wishing she had kept her mouth shut. “The - that’s what I was for. For them. Um. Castle?” She bit her bottom lip and turned to him, mouthed sorry. “I didn’t mean to tell.”</p><p>“No, honey, it’s part of things. What we need for you. We were going to ask.”</p><p>“Ask what?” Eastman said. “What things. What is the elixir?”</p><p>Kate laid her hand on Castle’s knee to keep him still. “John Black’s program. It all started with Castle and his brothers - well, no, I suppose it started a lot longer ago. He was manufacturing super soldiers, basically. Augmented men who had endurance and sped up healing, who would be able to go for long periods without sleep, who could problem solve faster than the usual processing time. That’s who you were training.”</p><p>“And you?” Eastman said. Carrie had returned to the living room with Wyatt, and she settled down in the boy’s chair with him, holding him in her lap despite her claim to not like babies.</p><p>“Me too,” she nodded. “He pumped me full of it to make me an ideal candidate for - breeding. A host.” She glanced guiltily at the boys. “I used to call him my parasite.”</p><p>“No kidding,” Eastman growled, rubbing both hands over his head. “Shit. This does not get better, does it?”</p><p>“No,” Castle glowered.</p><p>Kate looked at him, squeezed his knee. “I’m okay.”</p><p>“I’m not.”</p><p>She huffed, a breath of amusement despite herself, and he pulled one of Wyatt’s faces. She wondered if he was doing it on purpose or just by accident, and she laughed softly and leaned in to kiss his jaw.</p><p>“Poor baby. My same stories over and over.”</p><p>“Oh, God, Kate if that were only it.”</p><p>She shivered, skimmed her hand up his inside thigh. “Hush,” she murmured. “Don’t make me cry again.”</p><p>He groaned and tilted his head back, his throat working, and she very lightly teased his groin under the table.</p><p>His hips jumped and his head snapped down. He stared at her and she traced a little circle over the head of his cock. Or where she thought it must be.</p><p>His knee jabbed a little harshly into her thigh, but she took the hint, desisted. </p><p>“More about this elixir, Kate,” Eastman said, though his eyes were on the boys, studying them now, taking them apart. She was somehow okay with that; having them scrutinized by Eastman wasn’t the same as even Colin, and she could relax now.</p><p>It was almost as if she’d already made up her mind to trust these people. With her sons. As if - surrogate parents were being lined up in this moment. She had to do this; she had to make them understand.</p><p>“It alters the blood,” she told Eastman. “Castle knows it more thoroughly than I do, but I’m trying to catch up. I wasn’t told anything about it while it was happening, so I’m a little behind as a mom. Woefully behind.”</p><p>“No,” Castle said. “That’s not true. You are not behind. And this isn’t a race. You always check in with them, you always know if they’re okay. You love them - loved them even when you had every right not to.”</p><p>“Castle,” she sighed.</p><p>“No,” he insisted. “I won’t let you say stuff like that and just let it go. It’s wrong. It’s not accurate whatsoever. Lies my father told you to keep you beaten. Well, they’re bogus, Kate. Nothing he ever said is worthwhile.”</p><p>She huffed at him, squeezing his knee. She didn’t want to talk about that, not here, not in front of Mark and his wife. Not - now. Later, much later. She just wanted to keep herself in control and calm until the story was over.</p><p>Already she could tell that was a near-impossible task. She didn’t need the responsibility of him throwing himself on his sword for her.</p><p>-----</p><p>They had dessert.</p><p>Kate was floored.</p><p>She sat rooted to her chair as Carrie brought in the Boston cream pie on a cake stand of white milk glass, the transparent top revealing the yellow cake oozing with chocolate frosting.</p><p>Dessert.</p><p>She had made dessert.</p><p>“Of course, this is Mark’s favorite. I always make him Boston cream pie for his first night home. I rarely bake; I am really no good at it. But this I can do. This is easy.”</p><p>“It’s cake,” Castle said, sounding surprised. “You said pie.”</p><p>Kate was shaking. Everything seemed to happen without her, dessert passed one to the next, the boys laughed over as they stared bewildered at their plates. This time, it was James who reached out first and stuck his finger in the frosting melted over the sides.</p><p>He squawked, something excited, something surprised, hard to know, but he pressed on, getting a handful of the dessert and smashing it into his face.</p><p>Kate’s breath whooshed out, James’s enthusiasm making her shock give way. She took his lead, sticking her finger in the frosting and licking it clean, the super sweet taste pouring through her senses.</p><p>“Well, I guess it’s good,” Carrie laughed. “Wyatt, what do you think of it?”</p><p>Wyatt was a little comedian. He was giving James this I can’t believe you look with a horrified babble, as if he was telling James off. Castle leaned in and nudged the plate closer, while Carrie helped James with his fork.</p><p>Kate was left alone to confront her own dessert, and the heaping cake, the cream in the middle, the chocolate, was almost more than she could bear.</p><p>“Eat it,” Eastman said gruffly, his voice low so that no one noticed them. “It’s good. Helps.”</p><p>“Helps?” she whispered, glancing at him.</p><p>“Gotta wade back into life. Dessert helps. Promise. You don’t know how many times I’ve come back to all this and-” Eastman gestured roughly to the kitchen table, as if the abundance of food indicated somehow the overwhelming nature of life itself. Maybe it did. “That man has never had anything to come home to, so he has no idea. Spy is his life. But you. Me. We have the other. And it’s hard to feel a part of things until you’ve let yourself indulge in dessert. So eat.”</p><p>Kate swallowed, her eyes drifting to the piece of cake before her. There was something different about Boston cream pie as opposed to the milkshake from the restaurant she’d had, the fries. The cake was decadent, rich, sure. But it was normal. It was something she’d had all her life, something at every Labor Day cookout, something from her life.</p><p>“Eat it.”</p><p>She took a steadying breath and picked up her fork.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle, Colin, Eastman.</p><p>A rough circle in the middle of the living room. The lights were off, and there was one lamp golden from the kitchen, but its glow fell short of the men.</p><p>“I’ll stay in the car,” Colin said. “I prefer it.”</p><p>“You still using?” Eastman asked, arms crossed over his chest.</p><p>“You suddenly my father?” Colin snarled, turning away from the circle.<br/>Castle reached out and snagged his brother by the arm. “Don’t be an ass. Come on.”</p><p>Colin paused, his eyes flat and lifeless. An opiate then. It had been bad, Castle knew that much. When James was old enough to hold a rational conversation, Castle was going to sit Colin down and have James teach Col how he did it, blocking all this out.</p><p>“He doesn’t know me. He has no say in how I handle me.”</p><p>“No, he doesn’t, except I think he feels responsible.”</p><p>Colin growled, his eyes cutting to Eastman. “Why the hell should he feel responsible for any of this?”</p><p>Eastman frowned, stance widening as if bracing himself. “I’m sorry, have you met that girl?”</p><p>“Fucking hell,” Colin muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, you don’t want me here because it throws off the careful balance. I don’t want me here because you all give me a migraine. If I have to fucking shoot up just to survive this, then you certainly won’t want me in your house. Let me sleep in the fucking car and suffer through it.”</p><p>Withdrawal. Damn. Already? “Col-”</p><p>Colin slapped his hand away, shied towards the door. “I’ll be in the car, Castle.”</p><p>And then he and Eastman both let him walk away.</p><p>Castle growled and rubbed both hands down his face, wishing sometimes he could strangle his brother. He’d wanted Colin here, backing him up, not to mention if they had found Eastman, someone else might.</p><p>“You think there’s a waiting threat?” Eastman said, turning his back on the door as if dismissing Colin.</p><p>“I think we cut the head off a very big snake, but that’s not to say it won’t grow a new one,” Castle admitted. “I don’t know. I just - we’re here for information from you because we did our best to mop up.”</p><p>“I’ve seen what you do,” Eastman said darkly.</p><p>“Well, then. I guess you and Kate are even, considering she saved your life.”</p><p>“From you and your drugged out brother?” Eastman snorted. “Please, son. I had Colin before he even suspected. I’d have gotten you too.”</p><p>“No.” He clenched his fists, released them on a breath. “No. Like you said, you’ve met her. You think I’d have failed her?”</p><p>Eastman’s nostrils flared. There was a moment of tension, the silence burning with threats, and then Eastman stuck out his hand.</p><p>“More than truce,” he growled. “You with me?”</p><p>Castle studied the man’s hand, but he couldn’t get out of his head the way Kate needed this. Not just because Eastman had been ‘nice’ to her, but that connection, however weak, to her old life. To a real life, which Castle couldn’t give her. Mark and Carrie and their dog and horse and barn, the way this couple treated her like a normal person, loved on those boys as if they were family.</p><p>Family.</p><p>He had none of that to give her. </p><p>So Castle shook Mark Eastman’s hand.</p><p>“You with me, Richard?” Mark said quietly. “For her. I owe her a debt far greater than her asking a promise for my life. I stayed quiet when I should have spoken up, stepped up. I assumed, and I was wrong. I see that. I bear that responsibility.”</p><p>“She’s my-” Castle cut himself off with a shake of his head. “I won’t say you don’t. But it’s not an equal burden here. You have to give me that much, at least.”</p><p>Eastman’s jaw worked.</p><p>“We’re not equal partners,” Castle pressed. “She’s more to me than - this is my life we’re talking about. Hell, those are my sons.”</p><p>“And she’s the mother of your sons, I see that-”</p><p>“No. No, it’s more. And you can look at her and see twenty-two and three years captive, and fuck, believe me, I see that. I get it. But it’s more. And there is no explanation, there is no good way to make you understand, but I’m telling you. She’s - mine.”</p><p>He winced, knowing how it sounded, and of course Eastman didn’t look happy.</p><p>But this was all Castle had. “She’s my life.” His breath rattled in his chest, tight again. “Until I found her, blood-spattered and yet so damn calm, fuck, she was impressive, until I met that girl, all of twenty-two, I know, and captive for three years, I know, but until her, I was nothing.”</p><p>Eastman grunted. As if he wouldn’t deny that.</p><p>“You said it,” Castle gritted his teeth. “Emptied out. Soulless.”</p><p>“Wasn’t intending that to be-”</p><p>“You weren’t wrong. So let’s call her my soul, and we’ll be clear.”</p><p>“Hell,” Eastman sighed, rubbing his jaw. “Damn it, Richard.”</p><p>He wouldn’t be moved on this. She needed him, yes, but he needed her. They were - even. It sounded stupid, but they were the same in this. The balance of power in this thing was balanced. </p><p>“I’m going up to bed,” Castle said finally. “The boys are with us; Carrie found a mattress from a cot and laid it on the floor for them. I’m - going up now.”</p><p>Eastman scraped his hand through his hair and half turned away. “Fine.”</p><p>Castle moved towards the stairs but he paused, watching Eastman wrestle with it in the living room. He worked his jaw, not sure Eastman deserved him saying anything, but he finally gave in.</p><p>“Look,” he said quietly. “She thinks highly of you. It matters to her what you - it matters. Her dad is dead, her mother is dead; she has no one. But-”</p><p>“She has me,” Eastman growled. He had turned on his heel to glare at Castle. “I already - Carrie and I talked. We’re not about to pack up your car and wave good-bye and never see her again. She has us.”</p><p>Castle let out a long breath. Nodded, gripping the newel post of the railing. “Thank you,” he got out, and then he mounted the steps.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate sat cross-legged in the middle of the guest bed with Wyatt in her arms. James had been too tired to nurse, but she had managed to rouse Wyatt. So far he was taking his time, lashes fluttering as he tried to stay awake for her.</p><p>“Well, I found towels-” Carrie stopped still just inside the door. “I didn’t realize you were still nursing. I’m sorry. Wouldn’t have walked in on you if I’d thought.”</p><p>“No need to apologize. Used to it,” Kate murmured, stroking a finger over Wyatt’s ear as she smiled at Carrie. “You can stay.”</p><p>“Rick barges in on you?” Carrie chuckled.</p><p>Kate opened her mouth, felt the words coming out before she could stop them. “No, just - everyone else in that place.”</p><p>Carrie halted before the bed and then sank down, the guest towels in a pile in her lap. “Oh my God. Just when I - it’s like I forget somehow. No, after everything you’ve told us, I couldn’t forget. You just somehow manage to be so natural, normal. I walked in on this serene, beautiful scene and yet-”</p><p>“I shouldn’t have said anything,” she muttered, ducking her head.</p><p>“No,” Carrie insisted, touching Kate’s shoulder. She had to work hard to suppress the flinch but Carrie didn’t seem to notice. “You should definitely feel like you can talk to me. Whatever you want to say, Kate.”</p><p>Kate nodded but she watched Wyatt nuzzle against her breast, the slow droop of his lashes as he tried to get closer, be closer to her.</p><p>“They came in a lot when you nursed?” Carrie said quietly. “Or they were - always there.”</p><p>“They brought me in to the boys every night,” she answered. Wyatt’s little hand curled and tangled in her shirt, gripping the material. “Every night, right, baby? But before - it was every four hours.”</p><p>“Every four hours?” Carrie said. “At fourteen months?”</p><p>“Oh,” Kate lifted her head, shaking it off. “Not them. There was this - milker. A breast pump, I guess you’d call it. A machine that they brought into my room and - attached and - so I - I’m used to people watching.”</p><p>“Oh my God.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Kate said, shrugging it off. She jostled Wyatt and he whined up at her, but he turned his face into her chest, squirming. He was so tired. “It’s okay, really. I needed it. I mean, Castle said that the elixir builds up in my system. It gets toxic. But when I nurse, those toxins are drawn out through the milk. So they help me.”</p><p>Carrie folded her hands over the towels. Her face was blank.</p><p>“I - it sounds worse than it is,” Kate offered.</p><p>“I think it’s as bad as it sounds.” Carrie smoothed her hands over the towels and looked up. “I think it’s heart-breaking. For fourteen months, you were taken to their room at night. And in the day?”</p><p>Kate squirmed, shifted Wyatt up to her shoulder where he curled in against her chest. She adjusted her shirt, nudged her chin down to the top of Wyatt’s head. “In the day it was - kinda boring. In between the milker and just - I had a workout. A routine to keep me focused. And then these last six months, it was just about how to get out of there. The plan.”</p><p>“What was the plan?”</p><p>“Um.” Kate took a shaky breath and curled the back of her hand around Wyatt’s head. He was a good weight against her chest. A heavy presence. Real. “I don’t think you’ll like me much if I tell you what I did.”</p><p>“I think that’s impossible,” Carrie flared up. “Impossible. Anything you did was only necessary, Kate.”</p><p>She gave Carrie a tight smile for the enthusiastic support, but Carrie just didn’t know. How bad it could be. </p><p>“Tell me,” Carrie said. “Please? I want to know. Because you’re here, and so are these sweet boys, and you’ve managed to domesticate a man who has been more than just unlikeable in his recent past.”</p><p>“Domesticate,” she murmured. Kate eased James away from her chest, cradled him like he was a newborn, watched his eyes flutter just to be sure he was really asleep. And then she unlocked her legs and rose from the bed, carried the boy to the pallet and laid him down with his brother.</p><p>She turned around, faced Carrie who sat on the edge of the bed. She might as well. Make a clean break of it. Keep that guilt-ridden anger from Eastman’s face. He didn’t owe her, no matter what Castle said. She hadn’t spoken up, had she? She had assumed he knew she was imprisoned just as she had assumed he couldn’t possibly help.</p><p>“When I knew they’d put another one - I assumed it would be twins again, so two more - I couldn’t let two more boys - I started planning then. The scalpel was easy. The wire was harder. I had to unwind it coil by coil from the James’s isolette. The legs had these wire wraps, I don’t know why. It was one coil at a time, every time I leaned over and put him to bed. It took ages. Ages.”<br/>She sighed and sank back down to the bed, staring down at the boys on their makeshift cot.   Wyatt had rolled over into James, cuddled with him. They liked being together.</p><p>“And then one morning after a test, I pushed that wire up inside myself and scraped it around good and hard. Every place I could reach until the blood gushed out and the babies too, and then I passed out.”<br/>Carrie pressed her hands to her face, stared at Kate. “Oh God.”</p><p>“It had to be something big,” Kate said, frowning at the quilt spread over the bed. “It had to be huge or else it wouldn’t bring him to me. I needed Black to come give me a talking to, and that was the only thing that would do it short of killing myself.”</p><p>“You could have died,” Carrie husked. “Doing it that way. I can’t believe you survived it. How long did it take them to find you?”</p><p>“I - don’t know. Long time, I think.” She rubbed her arms and took a slow breath. “There was a lot of blood. But more when - when I killed him.”</p><p>Carrie’s arm tightened around Kate’s shoulder and then she was bringing Kate against her, embracing her. Carrie was giving her a hug.</p><p>God, she’d needed that. She laughed and pressed her hand over her face, her ear against Carrie’s chest, curled into the woman like she was just as small as Wyatt. </p><p>Carrie’s fingers stroked through her hair, combing it down. “And then what, sweetie? How did it happen?”</p><p>“I’d been restrained but I had the scalpel hidden close and I worked it free and then I sawed through the velcro. He was telling me what a bad girl I was, the bastard, and I lunged for him and stabbed him in the side of the neck. He spurted blood, a fountain of blood, a geyser. And he grabbed for me, but he was so surprised. That’s what I remember the most, how surprised he was that I’d done it.”</p><p>“He deserved it. I hope he bled like a butchered cow.”</p><p>Kate grunted, realized she was laughing again. “Oh, God. He really did.”</p><p>“And then in his eyeball, is that right?”</p><p>She groaned and tried to wriggle out of Carrie’s embrace, but the woman wouldn’t let her go.</p><p>“I hear that’s my husband’s signature move?” Carrie said, gripping her tighter, but was Kate really struggling? “You put your own little spin on it though.”</p><p>“I didn’t really stop. Just - dug around until I could be sure he was really dead.”</p><p>“Of course you did. I would have too. Never know.”</p><p>“I couldn’t be sure,” she sighed.</p><p>“Hard to kill off your nightmares and trust you’ve really slayed them.”</p><p>“Yeah,” she sighed.</p><p>Carrie combed through Kate’s hair and after a while, Kate realized she’d drifted because she heard the sounds of Castle’s feet on the stairs and coming down the hall. Before Kate could straighten up, Carrie placed a kiss on her forehead.</p><p>“Here are towels,” she said quietly. “And we’ll talk tomorrow about what kind of health care you’ve gotten since, all those pesky details that nonetheless should be looked after. But not tonight. I think that’s Rick. Night, sweetie.”</p><p>She let Kate go and stood up herself, took Kate’s head in both her hands and kissed her forehead again. Kate flushed, wondered if her damage was so very evident that Carrie was pitying her, and then the woman straightened up.</p><p>“You’ve got us, Kate. Whatever you need. Okay? Learn to call on us, because we can - we want to help.”</p><p>Before Kate could say anything, Castle was in the doorway and trading places with Carrie, the woman slipping out into the hall and gone.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle closed the door after Carrie, not sure about whatever exchange he'd interrupted. She had kissed Kate on the forehead like Kate sometimes did to the boys, like a small child, and Kate had taken it. She was on the edge of the bed, hands between her knees, and despite how small she looked, Castle knew she still had that damn scalpel.</p><p>He hadn't been able to get it from her all night. It was, he thought, down the front of her pants, her underwear, most likely, and palming that - while tempting - wouldn't exactly have been subtle.</p><p>Tonight though.</p><p>If she looked like she wanted him to palm her at all - there was that. And while Eastman's view of him had somewhat improved, the truth of the matter was that yes, he was sleeping with her, this girl who had been liberated from captivity only weeks ago.</p><p>"Don't just stand over me," she muttered, and kicked his shin. </p><p>He spilled out with laughter, surprised by her petulance, just - surprised. She scowled up at him and he took the hint, but instead of sitting beside her, he dropped to his knees before her, hooking his arms over her thighs, spreading them a little as leaned in close.</p><p>Her posture straightened up immediately. No longer curled in on herself, no longer miserable-looking, no longer child-like. Sensuous as she lifted a foot and slid it around his leg. He knee-walked closer as she parted for him, laid his cheek against her inside thigh.</p><p>Her hands came to the top of his head, her fingers combing through his hair. He touched his lips to her jeans and wished for bare skin, but he had to do this slowly, slowly, first to be sure she wanted it, and second to be sure she didn't notice when he took the scalpel.</p><p>Dissociating. He knew it was an extreme coping mechanism, but he was afraid she'd be too horrified to ever sleep with him again. Afraid of herself.</p><p>Her nails scratched lightly at his nape and he hooked his arms around her knees, let her hold him up. Let her set the tone, if she wanted it. What she wanted. Did she even know? Did she have the vocabulary or experience to put words to what desires threaded through her, twitched in her muscles, hummed in her chest?</p><p>He rubbed his cheek against her jeans and she squirmed, her leg tightening around him, her heel in his ass. He dragged her a little more, tipping her hips at the edge of the bed, and Kate gasped, clutched his head.</p><p>"Can I?" he murmured, nudging his nose between her  legs.</p><p>"Oh," she gasped. "Yes. Yes, I-" She was biting her lip, her body rising up on its own to meet him. Already so far gone for him.</p><p>"Lie back, baby." He ran his hands slowly up her outside thighs and teased under her loose shirt, pushing her back to the mattress. She flopped back, her hips rose up into his chin, and she shuddered at even just that contact.</p><p>"Castle," she whispered.</p><p>"Hush, love, have to stay quiet." He fingered the waistband of her jeans and she squeaked, hips hitching.</p><p>"Not sure - not sure that's possible," she breathed. "God, I need a gag for this."</p><p>"Fuck," he growled, entirely aroused in such a terrible, dark way. His forehead met her groin and she strangled a moan, her hands clutching his ears and riding dirty against his head.</p><p>Well, fucking hell. He might come in his pants. He had not seen that coming.</p><p>He shook off her hands and lifted his head, rubbed hard at the tops of her thighs, digging into the muscle until she grunted and her hips dropped. He'd had a half-baked plan for getting that blade, but now it had evolved fully formed from her thoughtless suggestion.</p><p>He rose to his knees, elbows digging into the mattress, and gripped high on her waist, pressing his thumbs into the taut skin. "Baby, look at me a second."</p><p>Her head rolled on the bed, her chin canting down. Her lashes were heavy. She was looking at him.</p><p>"Do you want me to gag you?" he husked. "Keep you quiet." Would it be worse if he took the scalpel from her? Would it set her off or would it overlay existing memories with something erotic and pleasurable?</p><p>Her eyes shot through with fire. "How?" she rasped.</p><p>"However you like," he whispered. "Your panties in your mouth? Or my neck tie looped around-"</p><p>"Yours," she growled. Her foot hooked at the waist of his pants. "Your boxers."</p><p>His cock stiffened impossibly. He had to bow his head and breathe, but it didn't do him any good. His every inhalation was redolent with her arousal, and she'd just asked him to strip and pushed his boxers into her mouth, press the material down against her tongue to muffle the noises she knew she was going to be making.</p><p>Her fingers gripped his hair, tugged. He lifted his head to find wariness making a pilgrimage to her eyes. "Do you not want to-"</p><p>"Oh, no," he rushed. "I do. I want to. I don't think I should want to, but fuck it all. You're too damn hot."</p><p>She grinned, her face splitting wide, and she tugged on his hair again. "Come up here, let me kiss you for that."</p><p>He crawled up the bed, dragging his own kiss along her belly and rucking up her shirt. He lowered his body carefully over hers, pressing her down to the mattress, and she sighed and rolled her hips up into him, adjusting until the hardest part of him met the sharp place between her legs.</p><p>"You feel good," she murmured, and her kiss took his mouth wholly. Her tongue pushing in against his, filling him, dominating him in a way he found insanely, entirely erotic.</p><p>And then he realized she was giving him the feeling she wanted. Her mouth filled.</p><p>Holy fuck.</p><p>He growled into her kiss and gripped her hip, dragged his fingers under her shirt to fumble at her bra. He found it already open for the boys' nursing, and he squeezed roughly at her breast. She moaned into him, too loud, and they both froze, sex heavy in the air, their legs half off the bed, heartbeats pounding.</p><p>"Whoops," she whispered. "Hurry up and get those boxers off, Castle."</p><p>He kneaded her breast in response and she whimpered, an arch against him that nearly toppled him off her. She buried her mouth against his neck, sucked hard at his throat. He removed his hand and had to prop himself up on one elbow to get at his pants, crushing her other other side as he did.</p><p>She mewled, shying under him. "Have to - have to help me out there. Oh, God, it - aches."</p><p>He paused in the middle of pushing down his pants. "What?"</p><p>"James didn't nurse," she whispered. "You need to-"</p><p>"Oh, hell, yes, I can do that." Castle abandoned his pants and pushed up her shirt instead, flipped open the lace triangle that revealed her stiff, engorged nipple. "Fuck. All for me."</p><p>She laughed, a soft thing that wound arousal around his guts. "Pants, Castle. Get those off. I'm gonna need it."</p><p>"I know what you need," he soothed, but he lowered his mouth to her breast and licked a circle around her nipple. She gave a breathy little noise, and he desisted, shifting now to strip the rest of his clothes. </p><p>Two birds this way. She'd be distracted with his body and he could drive her out of her mind feasting on her breasts. Push his hand down, slide out that blade.</p><p>Her fingers were 'helping' at his the waistband of his briefs, rubbing at his cock through the material. He grunted and had to get up, yank everything off while she shucked her own t-shirt and wriggled out of her bra. Her hands went for her jeans, and he reached down and caught her wrist, snagged the other before she could move.</p><p>"Not-uh. Leave that for me."</p><p>Her face was so open and trusting, her eyes dark and dancing with flame. She grinned and twisted her hands, caressed his arm before gripping and pulling him back down to her. He got his boxers off and hissed when her hand cradled his cock, soft little strokes of her thumb. Nearly forgot what he was trying to do, her hand felt so good.</p><p>"You're so soft," she whispered. "And yet so hard." Her mouth came against his cheek, nipped. </p><p>"You like that?" he panted, trying to drag back his control. </p><p>She hummed and nodded, her eyes filled with mirth as she traced circles around his head. "And heavy. I like it heavy. Always makes me think there's no way it will fit, it's too much, but then it happens anyway, and it does fit - so good. How you fill me."</p><p>"So perfect," he growled, wanting inside her right now. Right now. "Like no one else, baby, no one ever. How tight you are, how you widen for me."</p><p>She mewled and clutched at him, and he nearly lost his control.</p><p>But her milk, and his boxers were crumpled in his fist, and he had to find that scalpel before it hurt her.</p><p>He brought his hand up to her chin and pushed her back to the mattress, rising up on an elbow to gaze at her. "This first, keep you quiet, sweetheart."</p><p>"Yes," she said, a little breathless, her nostrils flaring, her breasts rising and falling. Flushed. Wanton. Desperate at the flick of a switch. And he was the switch. "Do it."</p><p>He gave a strangled laugh but it was her hand still caressing his hip and thigh and cock, it was her arm snaked around his neck as if she wanted him closer, harder, heavier. He dragged the material of his briefs along her stomach, studying it as if he was concentrating - but he was noting the red irritation just below her belly button.</p><p>It was there, the scalpel.</p><p>"Castle," she whispered.</p><p>He lifted his eyes to hers and saw her pleading, and he didn't want that. Not like that. Not - he could gag her, and he could pin her by the wrists, but the desperation that fell over into misery wasn't okay with him.</p><p>Her lips parted, tongue darting out. Castle stopped teasing and instead pushed two fingers into her open mouth. She groaned, and he nudged the material into her mouth, soaking his boxers on her tongue, just enough, not too much. He saw her grind her teeth against it, and he dipped his head, lightly kissed her breast.</p><p>Her noises were a little freer now, her chest humming with sounds. He tongued her nipple and licked a curve around the slope of her breast and she shuddered, her hips jumping. To desensitize her to his hand, he rubbed softly at the skin above her waistband, teased at her jeans, slow movements as suckled at her breast.</p><p>Her milk came suddenly, filled his mouth, and they both groaned. He had to close his eyes, swallowing the taste of her, and then he began to nurse fiercely, harsh swipes of his tongue to her nipple, his teeth, the suction of his mouth. She was muffled moans from behind the gag of his boxers, but her whole body was a live wire, writhing under him.</p><p>He lost himself in it. For a moment, for just a moment, it was only the way she filled him and the heat of her skin against his. And then he popped open the button of her jeans and eased his hand inside.</p><p>He traced the seam of her sex through the material of her panties and immediately felt the handle of the blade. She moaned and rode her hips up, and he realized she was riding the friction of that metal instrument.</p><p>Oh, there were so many things he wanted to do with her.</p><p>She was frenzied now, and her milk had slowed, but he teased against at her panties and slipped his fingers around the crotch. She choked and he lifted his head, immediately zeroing in on that gag, but she was merely half-sobbing into the ecstasy bursting through her.</p><p>Now, he had to do it now.</p><p>Castle nudged the base of the blade upwards, and it must have run hard against her clit because she screamed, a stunted thing behind the gag, and immediately her climax shook her. </p><p>Castle pickpocketed the scalpel, switched it to his other hand to hide it between the mattress and box springs.</p><p>Even while Kate fell apart under him, her eyes rolled back in her head and sobs stuck in her throat.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate yanked the gag out of her mouth and hauled him up to meet her, kissing him hard, a desperation in her desire that felt all out of proportion to the orgasm he'd just given her. Shewanted him, badly, so badly, wanted him inside her, stop messing around, she was good, she'd had plenty of foreplay, she was going to fall apart if he didn't make her fall apart.</p><p>Apparently she'd been crooning all of that into his mouth, his jaw, his cheek, his throat, his ear, because he kept chanting, I know, I know, I know and then his fingers found her. She gasped and jolted into him, and it was better than before, than anything, and she wanted this, oh this, keep doing this.</p><p>That's right, he hummed at her mouth. You feel so good and sweet and tight. Let me open you up. And if that wasn't pornagraphic enough, his fingers slipped and slid and rubbed her in that place that felt so intensely she could weep.</p><p>She orgasmed again without her permission, furious at herself for doing it before he got inside her, furious with him for how he worked her so tightly she couldn't stand it. But he that's it, that's exactly right, now for me and she swallowed hard and arched her back as he drove himself inside her.</p><p>Everything went still.</p><p>"Kate."</p><p>She opened her eyes and he stroked the hair back from her face, his hands were too wide and they were clumsy and heavy when he was thick inside her, always had been so far and she didn't see that changing, how his blood beat so hard and fast that it made his hands lose their dexterity, like he hadn't enough concentration for both.</p><p>"Kate."</p><p>Her name a breath and his chest lifting like a bellows out of time to hers so that friction scratched hot spikes in her nipples, her belly, her sex. He kissed her and she realized she was moaning his name, he kissed her and swallowed her sounds.</p><p>She rocked her hips like he'd taught her and his cock went impossibly deeper. Higher somehow, like he was touching parts of her untouched, reserved for just him, and this thrust, this feeling, this inescapable need.</p><p>"Kate." </p><p>It was his warning. You better be right behind me, and she heeded it, wrapping her legs around his back and shifting just-</p><p>Oh, God.</p><p>She burst into flames with a smothered cry, burning pure joy dizzy exhilaration, and he groaned and emptied inside of her, hips pumping, working, pumping, gone. Done.</p><p>She fell back to the bed. He spread a palm over her belly and laid his mouth at her breast and stayed just right there, as if he couldn't move a single inch.</p><p>-----</p><p>She loved breathing.</p><p>Heavy and hard and exhausted. And thick with that rush of blood between her legs, the swollen slickness. Best of all, his hot body beside her. He was always overly warm, but after sex he was like a flame, and she found herself the moth.</p><p>Let it burn.</p><p>His lips twitched at her breast, his body shifting, but only to settle a little heavier over her. Her lung capacity was restricted, but she loved it.</p><p>She squirmed under him to get her arm around his waist, but he rose, head lifting up. “Need me to move-”</p><p>“No, baby,” she hummed, patting his ass a little. “Stay.”</p><p>He chuckled and lowered himself back on top of her, a little higher now, one of his arms under her neck like a pillow. He twirled his fingers at her hip, making her skin prickle despite the heat of his body over her. She dragged a knee up to his flank, gripped his ass a little tighter. </p><p>“Give me like - huh - thirty seconds,” he grunted. </p><p>She laughed, smiling into the top of his head. </p><p>“Thereabouts,” he murmured.</p><p>“You sound tired,” she whispered.</p><p>“Nope.”</p><p>“Hmm.”</p><p>“Wanna fuck you again. Promise.”</p><p>She grinned, shifting under him once more. He put his hands to the mattress and lifted, but she knocked her elbow into his arm, making him collapse again. “Stop trying to get up. You’re staying.”</p><p>He grunted but his smile dusted her throat. “Yeah, but you keep squirming like you need to breathe under there.”</p><p>She wrapped her arms around his neck and kept him close, her mouth into his ear. “Only need to breathe a little bit.”</p><p>He kissed her. Found her mouth and kissed her, invasive and intruding and entirely everything she’d always thought - hoped - wanted this to be. She wanted everything, all those things that had been whispered about, but more, she wanted all those things no one had dared talk about.</p><p>Except Maddie once had said there were places you could go, like a club, and someone would pick you up and do things to you. Kate had never wanted things done to her, she was the doer, but the way Castle did things...</p><p>“What else is there?” she husked. Her fingers were raw where she was combing through his hair, over and over, keeping him against her.</p><p>“What you mean? I think we’ve done pretty damn well for ourselves-”</p><p>“Hush,” she murmured, kissing the corner of his eye. “I mean, the gag. Is that a thing people do?” Or was she just - off.</p><p>“People do.”</p><p>“Oh.” Not off. People did that, wanted that. “And - what about other things?”</p><p>Castle shifted, but she gripped him harder. He shook his head against her and his lips scraped at her collarbone. “Not going anywhere. And yes, people do other things. Kinky things.”</p><p>“Yes,” she breathed. Kinky things. “I like - all these things we’ve done.”</p><p>“You’re an exceptional woman,” he said, his lips reverent at the hollow of her throat. “And I am so damn lucky to be the one.”</p><p>“The one?”</p><p>“Who gets to do things with you.”</p><p>She shivered and tightened her arm around his neck. “I want - all those things. Can we do everything?”</p><p>Castle lifted his head, his eyes that spark of blue on blue that burned right through her. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”</p><p>She set her jaw. “I know enough.”</p><p>“You don’t.” He inched his fingers into her hair and stroked his thumbs against her cheekbones. “You don’t know enough, but I’ll teach you. There are some things, sweetheart, that I won’t do. And there will be things you don’t do either, hon. Lines, hard lines.”</p><p>“I can’t imagine any lines with you,” she said, turning her head into his touch. She felt warm and loose and easy, like she’d never felt before unless with him, and if this was always the result after-</p><p>“There will be lines, Beckett, or I won’t teach you.”</p><p>“That’s ridiculous. I’ll find out on my own. I’ll-”</p><p>“No. You won’t,” he growled.</p><p>She huffed at him, but his thumbs pressed into her throat. She gaped, mouth dropping open like the hinge couldn’t close, and his thumbs pressed harder, tighter; her air was - she couldn’t breathe.</p><p>Kate jerked, slapped against his arms but he was - too strong. He was too strong and her throat was being crushed-</p><p>And then suddenly she could breathe, gasping and choking, tears in her eyes as the air rushed inside her lungs again. She sobbed and threw her arms around him, pressing her face into his neck, hiding the tears in his skin.</p><p>“That’s one my hard lines, Kate, honey,” he whispered. “You see?”</p><p>She nodded, her whole body trembling.</p><p>“You didn’t like it at all, that wasn’t sexy was it?”</p><p>“No-o,” she croaked. She’d only thought why-</p><p>“And you know what’s worse, sweetheart?” His thumb curled at her ear and stroked. “I did that to you but you gave yourself over to me the moment I let up. And here you are, huddled into me, and I scared you.”</p><p>“Not scared,” but her voice cracked. </p><p>“Bewildered,” he murmured. “And betrayed. Kills me, but I needed you to know. This is very serious, Kate. There have to be lines. Things you won’t do, things I won’t do.”</p><p>She nodded, tightening her arms around him, trying to hang on.</p><p>“I won’t do that ever again. Do you believe me?”</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>“I love you,” he said into her hair. His fingers cradled the back of her head and she heard the way his voice cracked. “I didn’t want to do that but you have to know. You have to tell me no. You have to choose.”</p><p>“I did choose,” she growled, turning her mouth to his ear and biting hard at his earlobe. “I chose you, you asshole.”</p><p>“I know. I know. But Kate, honey, I have to be sure.”</p><p>About her. He couldn’t be sure about her. She was damaged and what if she had white outed while he’d gagged her or - or anything?</p><p>“I have to be sure that I’m not just everything my father was. I have to be sure I’m not him. I can’t be him. I can’t-”</p><p>She jerked back, catching his cheeks in her hands, staring up at him. “No. No, Castle. You’re not him. Even - even with your thumbs in my neck, I just - want you. Want to be - good enough for you.”</p><p>His eyes closed, and his lips came down to her skin, his lips soft on her throat. “I want to be worthy of you,” he whispered against her bruises. “I want to be good for you. So much better than anything you’ve ever - I want to show you everything, Kate. Will you let me? Even if - even if this happens sometimes?”</p><p>“It could happen all the time,” she scraped out. “All the time with you. So long as - as you don’t mind if I - maybe bruise you too.”</p><p>-----</p><p>"You can bruise me," he husked. "But I heal. It doesn't mean the same-"</p><p>"I stabbed you," she whispered, cutting right through to his heart with the smallness in her voice. "And here you are. That means something to me."</p><p>Castle tightened his arms around her and shifted to pull her into his body and not just him crushing her. She wound her legs through his, closer, ever closer.</p><p>It still scared the shit out of him. How he'd choked her and she had just taken it. Taken it, hit at him a little, but in the end, she hadn't broken free.</p><p>How she trusted him. She'd been afraid - hurt, bewildered, but afraid - and she had let him. And then the moment he had eased up, right in his arms. Huddled into him to hide her tears, but still in him.</p><p>Scared the shit out of him. She had no damn lines. God. He was going to-</p><p>"I'll try," she said in a tight voice.</p><p>He sucked in a breath. "Try?"</p><p>"To - find lines. To say no. I just, don't know that I ever would want to. If it's you, then it's... you. Castle, you said yourself, if I needed it, I needed it, and you said it's okay, you were bleeding to death and you just said are you okay and so I-"</p><p>She fell off, shivering, and he remembered they were naked on top of the quilt. Castle jammed his elbow into the mattress and dug under the pillows until he found the top, yanked down the covers. She let out a little breath and climbed in under, and he went with her, dragged everything on top of them until they were cocooned. </p><p>He studied her face in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, the anxious earnestness that crawled through her eyes. He touched her cheek and couldn't help but marvel.</p><p>She had stabbed him. He had to remember that feeling. Waking up, in and out, and wanting only for her to stop crying, stop giving him that heart-breaking look. Wanting her happy, no matter what happened to him. If she wanted to stab him, then fine.</p><p>"I understand," he murmured, touching his lips to hers. "We're not unalike. You can stab me a thousand times and I'd never-"</p><p>"God, do you know what responsibility that is?" she cried out.</p><p>He sighed, winding his arm around her shoulders and pulling her back against him. "Yeah, honey, I do. Didn't you hear me? I know exactly. We just - have to share that too."</p><p>She snaked her arm around his neck and pushed her body into his, and he wondered how in the hell he could bring it up now, the scalpel. He couldn't. She was already so - bewildered. So on the edge. He just...</p><p>"Don't let me hurt you, Castle."</p><p>"Don't let me hurt you, Kate, honey." He had almost said it again, because I love you too much, but they'd come to this parity and if he tagged his love onto it, she'd be backed into a corner about it. He didn't need her to say anything about it, just having that parity meant she loved him too. They were the same. If he said I love you then he only drew attention to the fact that she couldn't say it back.</p><p>But he loved her. And he could show her without shaming her; he could show her all night.</p><p>He touched her shoulder where she was hunched into him, caressed up to the back of her neck. He wanted to make love to her, with her, show her what was possible. Show her everything. No more crying in bed. Had to stop that habit.</p><p>He kissed her ear and that soft spot below it. He touched his tongue to her jaw as he trailed to her throat. He kissed the bruise he'd made that had already come up (she must be healing, still, faster than normal; it was hot to the touch).</p><p>Her fingers curled at his nape, gripping his hair. "Castle." Moving against him, finding his hip with her other hand. "Castle, more."</p><p>He responded, sliding his hand down her back and over her ass, slipping between her legs. She groaned, low, throaty, and shifted her leg higher on his hip. He slid two fingers right inside.</p><p>"Oh," she breathed, her mouth open against his neck. "I want you."</p><p>Her hand was already there, caressing, holding, touching him. He was flooded with her touch, with the sensation of her outside and in, and he was ready for her in moments. She made an approving noise with her mouth at his chin and then urged herself closer, looking for a way to guide him in.</p><p>He brought his hand to hers and helped her, showed her how it went, and she rubbed herself against him. She mewled as he pressed her apart, panting his name at his mouth before devouring his lips, his tongue. He thrust and she arched, gasping.</p><p>His penetrating was slow, drawn out. He went by inches, gaining ground and then retreating, and she whined in her throat and gripped his ass, his neck, rocking and rocking, trying for more.</p><p>When he was finally full sheathed inside her, she broke into a sob and sucked it back down, gulping breaths, trembling with him. Everything was hot and close and wet, everything so good, and damn it all, he was crying, and she was wiping his tears with her lips, brushing back and forth against his skin, her body clutching and gripping him inside.</p><p>"Come for me," she mouthed. "Come for me, Rick. I want you to lose - all of it. Come on, sweetheart."</p><p>He groaned, nipped her jaw, hips moving despite his best effort. Just her voice, just the sound of her voice, textured and filled with so much her words would never say. </p><p>"I want you," she whispered. "I want you inside me, deep, I want that feeling like nothing could hurt me, nothing could break me because I have you."</p><p>He sank his teeth into her shoulder, a cry muffled in her skin, and his hips pistoned, filling her tighter, thicker, past his breaking point. </p><p>And then he lost it, climaxing with an explosion of light, completely pulled apart from his own body, emptying his very soul inside her.</p><p>-----</p><p>She sighed when he finally slipped out, those little flutters and contractions of her body expelling him. He was still relatively boneless against her, slumped into her with those hot breaths against her forehead, but they were lined up nice and tight and warm.</p><p>"Did you?" he grunted then, his fingers flexing at her back.</p><p>"Did I what?" she whispered. It felt like her skin had melted into his. If she moved, they would peel apart painfully. So she didn't move.</p><p>"You good?"</p><p>She hummed and nodded into him, both arms wrapped around his broad back. She loved this. Back where they'd started before that conversation and the bruising. "So good."</p><p>His fingers twitched at her ass again. He groaned and rolled to his back, dragging her with him so that she was draped along his chest and her arms were stuck under him. She didn't mind at all, felt good to be so tethered to him, and she was still pleasantly fluttering inside, like something wonderful was about to happen.</p><p>He dragged his hand up her back and cupped her skull. His mouth was sloppy in its kiss. She couldn't remember the last he'd slept.</p><p>"Gonna fall asleep," he mumbled, that strange note of little-boy surprise in his voice. "Don't make me tie you up, can't. Can't do it anymore."</p><p>She pressed her fingers into his solid back, craned her neck to kiss his cheek, smiling. "Can't move anyway. Perfect. And I'm far far away from any kind of a weapon. So you're safe."</p><p>"Give you back the scalpel later," he sighed. "Later."</p><p>She froze. "The what?"</p><p>Castle grunted and struggled up through the vestiges of sleep. She could see how difficult it was for him, but her heart had clenched too hard to let go.</p><p>"Castle."</p><p>"No, nothing. Meant - meant you don't have to be unarmed. You can be armed. Just not in bed, yeah?"</p><p>Her breath left her lungs and she nodded, dropping her head back to his chest. "Yeah. Yeah, not in bed. Good rule, good." She was shaking again, and she could feel the curling edges of panic slithering in her guts. But she was trapped under and over him both, and she was naked, there were no weapons to hurt him with here.</p><p>She couldn't hurt him. She couldn't hurt him.</p><p>His hand fumbled at her nape and stroked down her hair, petting. "Later. Sleep now. You can sleep. I'm gonna - fall asleep, Kate. Can't-"</p><p>"Sleep," she promised and urged. She could, she would. She had to sleep, get real rest, because tomorrow they'd have to talk everything out with Eastman and Carrie. Sleep. It was so alluring.</p><p>"You," he rumbled in his chest. Like James. Mommy, you. "You."</p><p>"I'm sleeping, I will. Getting there. Hush, love." She kissed the corner of his mouth very softly.</p><p>There were no weapons here. Right?</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Castle woke four hours later (it was always four hours) and realized he was somehow lying on top of Kate. When he'd crashed into sleep, he'd been on his back, he was sure of that, and her arms had been pinned under him, but now he was draped all over her.</p><p>He lifted his head, got a palm to the mattress to shift-</p><p>"Castle?"</p><p>He grunted and glanced at her face, saw her eyes open in the light of the lamp. He'd forgotten to turn it off. "I wake you?"</p><p>"Couldn't sleep," she said tightly. "I - you said weapons, the scalpel? I... think I took it."</p><p>Oh, fuck. "Kate-"</p><p>"I took it, Castle. I hid it somewhere, I don't know where. I don't know-"</p><p>"I have it," he said, lifting up. He caught her hand before she could - he didn't know - kissed her knuckles. "I'm sorry. I should have said, but I found it. On you. I took it, I was going to give it back in the-"</p><p>"I don't want it back!"</p><p>He cupped her jaw and touched his thumb to her lips. "Baby, hush. It's okay. You need it. Obviously, you need it. I think - though - no weapons in bed is a good rule." He smirked, trying to get her to relax, but she didn't. "But it was hurting you, honey."</p><p>He reached down between them and touched her stomach. She flinched and a knee drew up, and her eyes widened.</p><p>"No blood," he murmured. "You're healing still. Fast because of the elixir. But, love-" He bent down and touched his lips to hers. "Love, you need sleep. So tell me what I have to say to make this okay."</p><p>She snaked an arm up and pressed it over her eyes. "I don't know."</p><p>"I woke up on top of you," he said softly, another kiss against her mouth, nudging in under her arm to reach her. "So you were restrained enough. You couldn't sleep because you didn't know I had the knife, but now you do. It's out of your reach."</p><p>"It is?"</p><p>"You won't be able to get to it."</p><p>"You promise."</p><p>"Cross my heart, honey." He opened his mouth over her throat at the other bruise. "We both have such power over each other, power to wound and bruise. I won't make your burden greater, won't make it harder on you by being stupid. I promise."</p><p>She let out a breath and her arm dropped, her eyes watery. "I really - don't think I could take it if you - if I did that to you again."</p><p>"I bruise you, you bruise me," he murmured, lyrics of a forgotten song, long long ago. Had his mother played that song? He didn't know. "Bruising is a part of life. Wounding is a part of life. But I will do my best to keep us from drowning in it."</p><p>"Me too," she said tightly, her arm wrapping around his neck now. "I can't get to it?"</p><p>"No, honey. Not where I put it." Well, some creative thinking and shifting him off the bed to pry apart the mattresses, but not really feasible. </p><p>"The boys can't get to it-"</p><p>"No. They can't get to it either. Enough of the twenty questions, I don't want you guessing."</p><p>She grunted, be he thought there had been an involuntary laugh in it. "Castle."</p><p>"Love you. Sleep. Okay? I'm good for the night. I'll keep watch. I'll hold you down."</p><p>She sighed, a long breath as she relaxed back into the mattress. It was like he'd thrown a switch, and it all it took was a little arranging of her body half under him and she was gone.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle watched her sleep, curled face to face with her, their knees touching. He had kept himself over her for as long as she’d needed the weight to drag her down into deep sleep, but he had shifted off of her to let her breathe, let her truly rest.</p><p>He had asked a lot from her body these last few days, and while he wouldn’t stop - she wouldn’t appreciate him stopping either - he wanted to give her real and lasting recovery tonight. </p><p>The dawn came slowly, Castle appreciating every moment of the time he had to soak her in, trace his eyes over her form, absorb the miracle of her sleeping in bed with him. </p><p>He was so focused on Kate, so deep in his own head, so open to the universe, that when the boys woke, he knew immediately.</p><p>Their awarenesses were little touches, like fingers resting lightly against his skin. He’d felt it before, not realizing, but it was the same connection that had made contact the moment the boys’ door had opened and Kate had gone to the babies in that isolette. Instant and real.</p><p>It came now, and Castle closed his eyes to better feel it, found himself drifting instead. Rudderless. He opened his eyes and the connection strengthened minutely, little flickers along his nervous system.</p><p>This was entirely more than having a finely honed social sense, more than picking up acute changes in body language or divining information from pheromones. This was, instead, a subtle entangling of one consciousness with another, and while James was obviously the one with a particular gift, neither Castle himself, nor Kate and Wyatt were lacking.</p><p>Wyatt had it too, whatever it was, and Castle had to wonder about what exactly it really was. The elixir had done this to all of them, and while Colin and James were especially sensitive to it - and to the world - he and Kate and Wyatt had impressions from each other, their little family group.</p><p>Neither boy made an audible noise, but Castle sensed the way Wyatt reached out for his brother and found him, the way their presences increased tenfold the moment they touched.</p><p>Castle instinctively reached out, closed his fingers around Kate’s drawn up arm. </p><p>He gasped, a rush of feeling flooding through him, confusing and jumbled, strong, and then just as suddenly it was shut down.</p><p>He still held to Kate’s arm, she was entirely asleep, but the whole thing had muted. As if someone were muffling it. Throttling the connection.</p><p>And he knew, somehow, that it was James.</p><p>James who had that same ability to entirely shut down the way Kate always did. She had modeled the behavior for him in the womb, she had imprinted her thought patterns directly onto James, had spoken straight to his malleable soul, and now James was adept at keeping them all contained.</p><p>It was fascinating. And scary as hell.</p><p>Castle released Kate’s wrist and eased himself out of the bed, going slowly to keep from startling anyone. He slid the scalpel out from between the mattress and box springs, placed it inside the box that carried his gun. It unlocked with the wave of his hand, and only his hand, and Kate couldn’t get inside.</p><p>Neither could the boys, who were, Castle saw, watching him from their blankets on the floor. Castle lifted an eyebrow at them and found a pair of clean boxers, pulled them up over his hips. He had black training pants in the bag, and a black t-shirt, and he dressed quickly, watching the boys for signs of movement.</p><p>But they stayed where they were. Too disciplined and quiet for fourteen month old babies, and Castle knew that.</p><p>He got down to his hands and knees and crawled toward them, trying to give them a smile, and Wyatt beamed back at him, relaxing.</p><p>“Daddy!”</p><p>“Yeah, it’s your daddy. But shhh, can you be quiet for Mommy? She’s still sleeping.”</p><p>“Eep,” Wyatt said, lowering his voice to match Castle’s. He had that interested, intent look on his face as he tried to mimic his father’s words. “Eeping.”</p><p>“Yes, baby, exactly that. Sleeping. Very good. Let’s go downstairs quietly and get some breakfast, huh? Then we’ll worry about showers and clean clothes.” He reached for Wyatt first, hefting him into his arms with a wrinkled nose. “Whew, buddy. Okay, well clean diapers are top priority. Let’s change you guys outside. I think the smell alone could wake her. And then knock her out again.”</p><p>“Ock!”</p><p>“You really do have fun with that ‘k’ sound,” he muttered, reaching down to gather James into his other arm. “But, kid, I said quiet.”</p><p>“Awk,” Wyatt tried out, though Castle had no idea what that sound meant. </p><p>He had a boy in each arm and barely the hands to grab the diaper bag, but he got them all out of the room without waking Kate. He headed for the bathroom down the hall, figuring he could use the facilities himself, change the boys’ diapers, get them all three cleaned up. He’d heard Carrie on the stairs earlier, maybe an hour before the boys had woken, and he figured Eastman was already down there.</p><p>“We’re already late to the party,” he told them, laying them both down on the tile floor. He made short work of diaper changes, grimacing at Wyatt’s full load, but both boys looked so relieved when it was done and they were clean that Castle could only shake his head.</p><p>He wasn’t sure what it meant, how petrified they seemed to be whenever someone other than Kate changed their diapers, how very still they were, how James seemed to dampen Wyatt’s natural squirmy tendencies - as if their lives depended on it.</p><p>No, that wasn’t true - he knew what it meant. He knew and it started to work in him, started to burn in his chest and make his hands tingle like they did when he had those moments in the field and knew - knew - it was about to turn very bad.</p><p>Maybe he did have something of what Colin and Wyatt had, maybe it had been there all of his life but expressed in a different way. Maybe reacting on instinct, maybe knowing exactly what happened next wasn’t just going with his gut. Maybe it was a gift.</p><p>James dampened, James cut things off. James could regulate the flood of sensation going in or out, could even turn off his own mother’s overwhelming tidal wave of PTSD and stress. James was never emotionally overloaded. James was steady - just as Colin had claimed Castle was.</p><p>Had been.</p><p>“We’ll work on this,” he told the boys, lifting first James to his feet and then Wyatt. “The three of us guys. We’ll work on this for Mommy, okay?” Work on finding outside the box ways of relaxing the boys, work on maybe using James’s ability to help his mother cope as well. He didn’t want to overload them, but they had resources here, they had things they could do to help.</p><p>Kate wasn’t alone. She had them.</p><p>“Mommy?” Wyatt asked, as if hopeful.</p><p>“Breakfast first.” Castle leaned in and kissed Wyatt’s forehead. “Let me wash my hands, use the bathroom myself, and then we’ll head down.”</p><p>-----</p><p>He refused to carry either boy on the stairs, and while James wasn't daunted, Wyatt did everything with slow and methodical exactness, completely unlike his personality. </p><p>Which meant he'd been conditioned to approach a problem that way, which meant someone had drilled into him that he had to be better, do better, that his natural instincts weren't good enough - and Castle had a fucking good idea who'd done that to him.</p><p>While Wyatt scooted down one stair at a time on his bottom, and James went forward a few steps only to wait on them, as if patient and concerned for his brother, Castle lingered somewhere between them, rigid with the effort of controlling his fury.</p><p>So when the cozy group in the kitchen started talking, Castle heard every word.</p><p>Colin had apparently come up from the car and was sitting at the breakfast table while Carrie moved around - Colin's voice stayed firm and Carrie's traveled - and Castle couldn't quite tell where Eastman was, the man spoke little and mostly listened. </p><p>James gripped the railing and stood his ground near the middle of the stairs, but Wyatt eased down another step, cast a swift and anxious look up towards Castle.</p><p>He stopped looming, instead hunkered down near eye level to sit beside his son. He could hear better this way too, and they couldn't see him from the kitchen doorway.</p><p>"It's okay," he said quietly to Wyatt. "Take your time."</p><p>Eastman's voice carried to him and Castle lifted his head, concentrated.</p><p>Colin answered, "We found her like that." Something from Carrie about medical treatment, and then Colin again, "No, we took her to the hospital, said it was a botched D&amp;C. But she healed up in like two weeks - Castle just took her for a follow-up. Cleared her."</p><p>Castle let out a breath and planted his hands on his knees, watching Wyatt make his slow way down to the next step. James clung to the wooden bar of the railing, leaning against it as he waited on them, entirely not in character for any baby ever, and Castle knew that too.</p><p>"You have to be careful of her," Colin said then.</p><p>Castle lifted his head.</p><p>"You don't know what she's capable of, and he's fucking determined to ignore it. You need to know. So you can protect yourselves. Don't be alone with her. Especially don't be alone with her if you're trying to make her talk about what happened back there."</p><p>Castle stood, his heart roaring in his head, but Wyatt froze, wouldn't move.</p><p>"She dissociates. Goes completely - none of her is there. I saw it happen when she fucking stabbed my brother in the back with a scalpel she'd hidden on her. I come running and find him bleeding to death on the bathroom floor and she's hiding in the bedroom-"</p><p>Castle barreled down the stairs, burst into the kitchen, going straight for his brother. "You bastard-"</p><p>Castle had Colin up against the wall before Colin registered he was there, but the second his back had hit, he was fighting, fighting hard. "Don't be stupid. You're so damn blind about her, Castle. Just-"</p><p>"Don't tell these people fucking lies-"</p><p>Something wrenched him away from Colin, a strong body tackle that sent his shoulder into the wooden frame of the door and made his head ricochet against the edge. Eastman. Castle struggled to orient, got his hands up to go back for Colin, fight off the trainer, but at that second his eyes caught the stairs.</p><p>Both boys were staring at him, wide-eyed, frozen halfway down.</p><p>Castle drew up short, fell back against the doorframe as Eastman shoved him back. Castle lifted both hands, universal surrender, breathing hard as he glanced at Colin. "I'm cool. It's cool. Eastman, stop fucking shoving me."</p><p>Eastman stepped back, Castle dropped his hands only to point a hard finger at his brother. "She didn't hide. She went to go get your help-"</p><p>"It's true, then," Carrie said quickly. "She stabbed you."</p><p>He worked his jaw, glanced back to the stairs. "She - needs to feel safe. She didn't feel safe."</p><p>"What did you do to her?" Eastman growled. "So that she didn't feel safe."</p><p>Castle shook his head. He wouldn't - he couldn't betray that trust. The things they did, they did together, and the fears and nightmares she had, the flashbacks, that wasn't for him to spill. Wasn't for Colin to spread around either. "Colin, you can damn well keep your mouth shut about her. Making her look bad to them and you know all she wants is his approval."</p><p>"Mine?" Eastman snapped. </p><p>Castle swallowed, glanced back to the stairs. "Let me get my sons. I just scared the shit out of them and this is gonna take a while. I'll - explain in a minute."</p><p>He turned his back on the three in the kitchen, and with every step he walked towards the boys, he felt his anger fizzle out. </p><p>He didn't like Eastman, didn't like Kate defending him, but if they were going to do this - as so clearly Carrie and Mark wanted to do - then Colin... Colin had been partially right. They ought to know what Beckett was up against, mentally, emotionally, not just physically.</p><p>"Hey, guys," he said quietly, approaching the stairs. "I'm sorry. I scared you, I know. Mark scared you. But it's my fault, and I need you to come on downstairs with me."</p><p>James absolutely refused to budge, and Castle didn't try to reach for him. Instead he held his hand out to Wyatt, who was about two steps just beyond Castle's full extension.</p><p>"Wyatt. Please. Come on down." </p><p>Wyatt hesitated. Castle could read the longing on his face, the uncertainty, and he'd done that to them. He had put that there.</p><p>He went to his knees on the first step, tried to make himself smaller. "Please, son. Come on down. James won't if you won't."</p><p>"Daddy?"</p><p>"Yeah," he breathed. "Yeah, that's me. I'm sorry. Come on, you can make it. It's safe. It wasn't about you guys at all, just your uncle being an asshole."</p><p>Wyatt sat back down on the step. His body leaned forward. Castle wondered if he should just go up there and take him, but he had a feeling that would be the exact wrong thing to do - for James's sake.</p><p>"Please, Wy. You can do it."</p><p>The boy glanced past Castle's shoulder, but Castle steadfastly blocked it out. All of it. He concentrated only on his sons.</p><p>Wyatt lifted both arms and reached for him, fingers opening and closing. "Daddy."</p><p>"Come here, come on. Come down to me."</p><p>And then Wyatt did, bumping down on his bottom to the next step, the next, going faster and faster as he gained a rhythm, practically heedless, not even looking. And then at the fifth step up, he launched himself at Castle.</p><p>Castle caught him, gripped him tight, and then took two steps up and picked James right up off the stairs and into his arms.</p><p>----- </p><p>"She told me some about that," Carrie said. She was watching him like a hawk as he fed the boys, but he didn't exactly know why.</p><p>Maybe he looked as dangerous and brittle as he felt right now.</p><p>"And the elixir," Castle added. "You know Black had her primed for - this." A desultory wave of his hand across both boys. His guts were gnawed by acid. </p><p>"And that's why she's been cleared?" Carrie said. She reached out and caught the spoon before it could drop to the floor, handed it back to Wyatt with a gentle smile. He beamed back at her and dug in to his yogurt.</p><p>James had given up on the spoon and was using his fingers. Castle let him. "That's why, yes. She was completely healed when we went in. Off pelvic rest and-"</p><p>"Ah, I see," Eastman said, glowering.</p><p>"Not your business," Castle snapped. He felt pushed to the edge and he didn't know why. At least James was doing his thing, shutting him out. James had started that the moment Castle had launched himself at Colin, hadn't he? Shut out the whole damn world.</p><p>"Guys," Carrie said testily, throwing a look at Mark. "Let's stop this male posturing and focus on what matters. The elixir is doing things to her you can't predict, is that right?"</p><p>Castle grit his teeth and nodded. He felt like he was breathing through glass. He felt-</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Oh, fuck.</p><p>"Hang on," he got out, abandoning James to his breakfast and heading for the door.</p><p>"Wait, Richard-"</p><p>"Kate needs me," he growled, pushing past Eastman and taking the steps in vaulting leaps. James had shut out the world, James did that when Kate was his trigger point. Not Castle. James went all serene baby when Kate was stirred up.</p><p>And Castle was too. Feeling it. Feeling it badly, and it had to be that she was-</p><p>Castle stopped dead in the doorway of the guest bedroom. </p><p>She was asleep, sprawled over the pillow he'd been using, her mouth open, hair in exotic disarray. One arm reached across, the other under the pillow, one knee drawn up.</p><p>Perfectly fine. Deeply asleep. Gorgeous.</p><p>His guts unclenched. His heart rate dropped. </p><p>Kate hadn't needed him at all. He had just needed her.</p><p>Castle carefully crept into the room and crawled into bed with her, eased himself against her back, aligning his body to hers, settling his hand on her hip. He inhaled the scent of her, sleep warm and sexed, salt and musk and that faint powder and lilacs that came from her soap.</p><p>She didn't even stir.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate smiled when her eyes opened. She reached back and touched his knuckles, laced their fingers together to bring his arm around her.</p><p>He whispered good morning and came in close. She kissed the meat of his thumb and took a long breath, surprised by how relaxed she felt, how rested. How capable now for whatever this day looked like, whatever she had to do.</p><p>She turned in his arms and pressed herself against him, hummed when she found his arousal waiting for her. Her kiss against his neck had him breathing hard, her hand traveling under his shirt made him roll on top of her.</p><p>"Why are you dressed?" she whispered into his mouth.</p><p>"Mistake. Huge mistake," he said, his kisses drugging, intent, heavy. She gave way to it, but she got her hands down his pants, pushing away material to find his cock. </p><p>"Huge alright," she murmured, smiling as she kissed him, groaning when he sucked on her tongue. His fingers found her, she was slick and wet from last night or good dreams or something, she didn't care, so long as it meant he would have her. "Come on, baby."</p><p>"Next time, I'm waking you with my mouth," he said, as if he had to make her promises. As if she needed promises. </p><p>She rocked against his fingers, felt herself being opened up, pressed open, the friction of just his hand. Her heart was thudding madly in her ears. She was making noises she couldn't stop. He was swallowing them and adjusting himself to her sex.</p><p>She nudged him in the last of it, arched when he entered her. Overwhelming need spiked through her, gripped her spine like an electric shock. She writhed, urgent with his name, felt his urgency redoubling inside her, the two of them on a feedback loop that wouldn't end. </p><p>"Love, love," he choked, teeth at her lip, her chin. She gripped him, clashing hips and driving deeper, felt something inside her twist impossibly tighter and break apart.</p><p>She cried out, stunned by the shock of it, the waves of climax roaring and falling over her, battering her body against the rocks. </p><p>Castle groaned, buried his teeth in her neck, and spilled inside her.</p><p>-----</p><p>Their shower was hurried in the end. Not because he was rushing her, but because she had touched him and he had touched her and they'd done some quiet and sensual things to each other in the steam and heat and water, slick and friction, and her orgasms had been so damn good she couldn't seem to stop.</p><p>"My hair's a mess," she muttered, crunching it up with both hands and letting it fall again. Wet ropes against her neck. "I'm not sure I rinsed out all the conditioner."</p><p>Castle was holstering his weapon, the black wrap-around at his calf that would be hidden by his pants. Fucking hot was what it was. He glanced up and studied her critically. "Go rinse it out again. Stick your head in the sink.”</p><p>She wrinkled her nose. "Just gonna put it back in a knot." She didn't want to delay a moment longer. The boys were downstairs eating breakfast, entertained by the Eastmans, and while she hadn't been looking for free baby-sitting, she realized she had a tendency to forget that the boys were her responsibility. Her watch, so to speak. All the time.</p><p>She just wasn't used to having them.</p><p>She watched Castle adjusting the holster, and then he reached back into the lockbox and produced the scalpel.</p><p>Kate jerked back, smacking into the wall and wincing as her head bounced. "Ow. Shit. Castle."</p><p>"Sorry. Didn't mean to set you off. Only that this is yours-"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"I think you should be armed, Kate. Not just because of - that place - but for your own protection where we're going."</p><p>"So give me a damn gun," she blurted out. But shit that was infinitely worse. "No. I don't know why I said that. I'm not serious. I can't be trusted with-"</p><p>"I trust you," he said, advancing on her. "After what we did, that connection, the feeling of you around me-"</p><p>She let out a breath, struck in the chest by the force of that mental picture, the want of it. "Feeling of you, so deep. I..."</p><p>"No gun, not if you don't want it. But the knife."</p><p>"Not that knife," she choked out. "Not the scalpel. Leave it here forever. I don't want to see it ever again."</p><p>He came right up to her and opened her clenched fist, not without effort, and placed the scalpel against her palm. "Time to demystify it, baby. Time to recognize it for what it is. A tool. One you used with great skill and cunning to save your life, to save those boys' lives."</p><p>"I was going to die," she whispered.</p><p>"You were," he murmured. His hand left her hand and the scalpel felt like a weight, dragging her down. His fingers caressed the side of her face and petted her wet hair. "You were going to die, and you did something about it. And it worked. And now here we are." His mouth opened and touched hers; she felt insensible with his kiss, heavy, everything heavy. "Here we are, and I can touch you, here, and here."</p><p>She arched into the press of his fingers at her center. Her panties had been soaked since she'd put them on and surely he felt that, the heat that burned through her.</p><p>"You survived, and now you thrive, sweetheart. Kiss me."</p><p>She touched her tongue to his and groaned, felt her hand clench in a fist around the scalpel, power surging through her. She took from his mouth, wrapping both arms around him to get him closer, tighter, harder, riding his hand as he pressed the seam of her jeans back and forth against her clit. She growled, fighting the urge to slam her body against his, the urge to crush and be crushed, but she couldn't help biting his tongue and tasting the copper of his blood.</p><p>"Fucking hell, you are the most beautiful creature I've ever known."</p><p>She came apart with a gasp, triumph burning behind her ribs, burning in her heart. Bright.</p><p>"I'll get you a sheath for your sword," he husked at her mouth. "My warrior goddess. Inside thigh, right here, and you will fucking gouge out the heart of your enemies."</p><p>She wasn't shaking anymore.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle came downstairs with Kate's hand in his, and when they hit the living room, and she tried to untangle their fingers, he wouldn't let go. He was adamant that she not be allowed to withdraw. Not first thing this morning when so much rested on convincing Eastman to help.</p><p>If he could help. Castle wasn't sure the man knew anything at all that might be of use, but it had become clear that what Kate needed wasn't information.</p><p>She needed her parents. And Mark and Carrie could be grafted into some kind of a support system if Castle played this right.</p><p>"Rick," she murmured, hesitating before the kitchen door, just out of sight. She had the scalpel in her back jean pocket, and he knew she was very aware of its presence. Which was good. Necessary.</p><p>He turned to her, shuffled back to meet her. He kept her hand, awkward though it was, and leaned in to softly kiss her downturned lips. She sighed against him, he felt her lashes flutter at his cheek, and then she straightened up.</p><p>"The boys are eating yogurt and waffles," he murmured. "Carrie made breakfast. She asked me what you might like; she seemed anxious to please you."</p><p>Her chin came up, cheeks flushing. "She did?"</p><p>"She did."</p><p>"I haven't said good morning to the boys," she murmured, as if that was one more proof she had to go in there. "I miss them."</p><p>He felt astonished. "You do?"</p><p>She gave him a crooked shrug and averted her eyes, and he found himself turned inside out over her, how sweet she could be and all the while he knew how very deadly, how fatal it would be to misjudge her.</p><p>"I love you," he whispered and kissed her hard before she could - or had to - say anything.</p><p>He pulled back and gripped her hand in warning, led her into the kitchen where everyone was congregated. Colin and Eastman were both finished, their plates empty, but they seemed at ease with each other in a way they hadn't been just two hours ago. He had no idea what had happened, but they'd come to an agreement without him, and that pissed him off.</p><p>"Mark," he said, and he heard how clipped his tone, made the effort to regulate. "Do you have any carry/conceal sheaths? A small blade, about-"</p><p>"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Colin burst out, jerking to his feet.</p><p>Castle rounded on him, his hand still gripping Kate's. "It took forty-five minutes to calm them down after this morning, you asshole. Sit down."</p><p>Colin looked violent, and he remained standing, but he didn't say another word, his jaw working, eyes flashing. If Castle had been the steady one all this time, then Colin had been the one to blow up at the drop of a hat. Maybe this was good for both of them, Castle feeling things so intensely. Maybe it was time his little brother grew up.</p><p>"Is this the infamous scalpel?" Eastman said into that tension.</p><p>"Wait." Kate shouldered forward, came to the back of James's chair. "What do you mean calm them down? What happened this morning?"</p><p>"It's for the scalpel," Castle nodded. "But I'm thinking the KA-BAR fixed blade for the future. She draws damn fast."</p><p>"She got the drop on you," Eastman said, eyebrow flicking up, smooth pride in his voice.</p><p>Kate's jaw dropped.</p><p>Castle reached down and smoothed the top of James's head, the bedhead curls. "The boys were upset when Col and I fought this morning."</p><p>"Castle," she murmured, horror drifting in her eyes.</p><p>"I have a sheath that might fit that blade," Eastman said, carrying on the conversation. "And I have a conceal wrap, might fit her thigh. Made for the calf though."</p><p>"That's perfect," Castle said, squeezing Kate's hand. "Because we have a few - stops - to make after this one."</p><p>Eastman eyed them both, and then looked to Colin with a studied, informative exchange of glances. The two had come to an understanding, but Eastman was still on Kate's side. The offer of the carry sheath was proof. </p><p>"I'd like to come," Eastman said then, leaning forward to put his elbows on the table. "And I might, actually, know a few stops you ought to make."</p><p>Carrie didn't even flinch. The two must have talked long into the night about all of this; Carrie was not even stoic - she was merely tranquil.</p><p>"Alright," Castle finally said. "I guess you've earned that right."</p><p>Kate's hand squeezed fiercely around his.</p><p>-----</p><p>Her hands were damp as she sheathed the scalpel inside the black neoprene harness. It was as long and wide as a tampon, but flat, so flat she barely felt it resting on her palm. She had her foot propped on her chair as she tried to discern how the whole thing was supposed to work.</p><p>Eastman eyed her critically. "The wrap goes like this," he said, touching the top of her knee as if in warning. She flinched, and he issued a gruff apology, but he took the neoprene and velcro wrap from her hands and laced it around her upper thigh.</p><p>If she was rigid and gritting her teeth, it was only because the sound of the velcro as he adjusted it scraped across her nerves. Castle was sitting at the kitchen table before her, and he evidently could see what it did to her, because he slid his foot forward and touched the outside of her own. His bare toes wriggled at her instep.</p><p>She cast him a grateful look and James, who was in his lap, beamed back at her, apparently under the impression that the look was for him.</p><p>She laughed, surprised into it, and that made everyone glance at her, and then James in turn, and smiles popped out across the table. Except, maybe, for Colin, who still didn't trust her, as was only right and good. Someone ought not to trust her.</p><p>Eastman just looked proud. But Eastman didn't love Castle the way she did, need for him to be-</p><p>Her heart went still. </p><p>His toes curled on the top of her foot. She glanced at him, something faint echoing in her chest, like a heartbeat, like fear, but he was still just - Castle. Himself. A hand on James's belly to keep him in his lap, fingers wide, wearing his tight black t-shirt that made the flex of his bicep into an impossible reality.</p><p>"What?" he said, shrugging. "You look hot all decked out. My warrior queen."</p><p>"I hate you," she mumbled, cheeks flushing. Eastman clucked at her and patted the top of her knee, and she dropped her foot to check out the difference. "I don't even really feel it."</p><p>"Exactly the point," Eastman said. "I usually kept it strapped inside like this, but you could change it, put it on your right thigh, on the outside, and still be able to draw right-handed."</p><p>She tucked her fingers under the stretchy band at her left thigh. The blade was inside, erotic in a way it shouldn't be - but Castle had done that to her, talking her up in the bedroom, caressing and touching and telling her in no uncertain terms just how it would be. She wasn't exactly afraid of the blade any longer, but she hoped - she prayed - it was healthy respect.</p><p>"At least if it's visible," Colin muttered, "we'll see it coming."</p><p>"Shut up, Col," Kate sighed.</p><p>Everyone at the table jerked their heads her direction. She gritted her teeth, ready to defend herself, but Colin laughed.</p><p>Her heart came out of her throat.</p><p>"Alright, I'll shut up," he said. "Save it for when it matters."</p><p>She glared at him, and he gave her a sardonic salute in return, but she thought it was something at least. Something like a truce. He didn't like her, but he didn't hate her. He had nothing against her personally. And he still felt he owed her something for Black.</p><p>"Stop fishing around in my skull," he murmured in a low voice. Eastman shot him a look for that, but he didn't seem to get it, and Castle stayed very relaxed and easy, playing dumb or innocent, setting the tone.</p><p>Kate said nothing, gave off nothing, fingered the sheath instead, as if inspecting it. Carrie had gotten up to attend the waffle maker, apparently seeing nothing out of place with Colin's comment, and after a moment, Kate realized that nothing was.</p><p>The beauty of hiding in plain sight, just like Castle had said about their covers. No one expected a spy to have two babies, so of course no one saw it. And no one - not even Eastman - expected their little family to have special telepathic abilities, so no one saw it. </p><p>That was what it was, really, wasn't it? They were telepathic. They knew things, felt things, they could gauge the room, the mood, the goodness of someone's soul. </p><p>Castle's foot tapped over hers and she glanced at him, sat down in her chair. Nothing, no comment, no concept of what they were really dealing with here.</p><p>Carrie brought a plate of waffles over and offered them with a serene smile. </p><p>Kate took one, then two, then felt her heart pounding hard in her ribs. "We should tell them. I think we should tell them."</p><p>"God damn it," Colin growled.</p><p>"You started it," she shot back.</p><p>Eastman crossed his arms. "I knew that meant something. Elixir? Is that it? What the hell is in this stuff?"</p><p>-----</p><p>To say that Carrie and Mark were floored was an understatement. Fascinated, appalled, curious, disbelieving, stunned. Carrie leveled it with the same tenacity and intelligence she had approached everything so far, and Kate was grateful for it, for how calmly Carrie asked her questions. She seemed to be the spokesman of their marriage, the one who dug for information, while Mark sat back and absorbed every detail.</p><p>Carrie investigated her just like Wyatt and James were investigating that poor hedgehog. At least they were being kept entertained while this went on. Though James seemed to know that eyes were on him. He kept hunching his shoulders and disappearing - behind the couch, under a chair, into the next room, under the kitchen table. </p><p>The last time it happened, Wyatt still down on the floor with his face pressed to the rug, cooing at the hedgehog, Castle got up and collected James from the pantry where he'd faded.</p><p>Kate held her hands out for him and Castle obliged, the boy turning into her chest and snuggling tight, hiding his face. He didn't like attention. He didn't want people's eyes on him, studying his performance and judging. She kissed his ear and whispered his name into the soft shell, and something in his body relaxed. </p><p>"Little parasite," she murmured. He let out a sigh, fingers curling in her bra strap through the shirt.</p><p>"How long range is this?" Carrie asked. She was sitting with Kate on the couch, and she reached out to smooth the back of James's shirt. "In the house? Miles?"</p><p>"Miles," Kate nodded. She turned to Colin, forcing him into the conversation once more. "You?"</p><p>"Not that good," he muttered. "The bounds of a facility, let's say."</p><p>She shivered and James's little mouth worked against her neck. "Fair enough," she said. He'd scored a point on her for her pulling him into this. "And the little guys, I don't know. They seemed to freak out when I went with Castle to see the sketch artist. A thunderstorm, and they'd never seen that before, and I don't think they could feel me that far out."</p><p>"How many miles was that?" Carrie probed, looking at James thoughtfully. </p><p>"About a hundred," Castle answered. "But the storm. There are things we don't know. Things we do know but we don't know why. Colin figured out that copper keeps things muffled for him."</p><p>"Shielded," Colin said, shifting to sit forward in the chair. "It's not just muffled, it's gone. Enough copper and I can't feel anything. Like people are kryptonite and copper is the lead-lined case."</p><p>"Oh," Kate murmured, turning her head to him. "I didn't realize that."</p><p>He nodded. "And yeah, we have no idea why. Might be the iron in our blood, something. I'm not a fucking scientist, I leave that to Alex."</p><p>"Alex," Eastman said, his voice hard. "You know he was - quite close to your father."</p><p>"We already know," Castle said, wiping a hand down his face. "He was there. Kate picked him out. The sketch artist got us to you, by the way, and then we did a computer program for the other people she remembered."</p><p>"Alex was there." Eastman glanced between them. "He has always been - very intrigued by the process. I saw him a lot when I was there."</p><p>"How much is a lot?" Castle growled.</p><p>"Rick," she said softly. "Don't." They might yet need Alex. He was their brother, and he had been raised by Black as well. He deserved the same grace the rest of them were getting.</p><p>"I don't know what he knew," Eastman said. "I was there for 72 days, on-site living arrangement, and I never figured it out. So if he was interning, maybe he was as blind as I was. Willfully."</p><p>Castle looked entirely agitated, more so than she'd seen from him before. </p><p>Carrie patted James's back and leaned away, glancing towards Wyatt as if to check on him too. "So, miles, then, for the boys. At least. And Kate, you're tuned into them - the twins - but not to us?"</p><p>"To you?" she blurted out, surprised. "I... no. Never occurred to me to try, though." She spread her palm over James and tried to sift through the babble in her head, but most of it was just her own edgy nerves. She wanted to be as calm and cool as Carrie seemed to be, but this was huge.</p><p>She had given away their secrets.</p><p>"Nothing?" Carrie said, a little smile on her lips.</p><p>"No, nothing," she shrugged. She looked to Colin and he gave a short nod, and everyone in the room saw it. Carrie touched her lips and regarded Colin thoughtfully.</p><p>"And you think James and Colin have the same level of - ability. To feel more about people."</p><p>"James is better than I am," Colin said. "Longer distance, but also - I get the feeling he sees whole images from people. I just get impressions. Like if you closed your eyes and I pressed this kid's toy rag doll into your arm, you'd think, soft and maybe a sweatshirt, shit, Kate, this thing is pathetic-"</p><p>"Shut your mouth, Colin," Castle muttered. "And look, you offended James. Give it back to him."</p><p>James had, indeed, twisted around in her lap and leaned out after his rag doll. It'd been left on the floor by the chair in favor of the hedgehog, but now James mewled for it.</p><p>It was passed from Colin to Carrie to finally James, and the boy hugged it against his chest and crashed back into her. She chuckled softly and rubbed his back, kissing his temple. "You got it. See? Colin wouldn't hurt it."</p><p>"Okay, so keep going," Carrie interrupted. "You mean if I had my eyes closed and tried to sense that specific object, I might get the details right but not the whole picture. It's the kid's lovey, not just a sweatshirt, and I wouldn't know that."</p><p>"Yes, exactly," Colin said, nodding.</p><p>Kate sucked in a breath. "I - that's what it is. All the little things seem so real, so right, but then I get it so wrong."</p><p>"Me too, darling, me too."</p><p>She blinked, a shift of her insides, and she realized her fingers were itching at the neoprene holster around her thigh. She stopped, pulled herself back to now, to James on her lap with his- "Lovey?"</p><p>"Yeah?" Carrie glanced at her, smiled at James. "That's why my family always called it. My sisters all had like four kids each. Insanity."</p><p>"Lovey," she murmured, dipping her chin to look at James. "Is that your lovey?"</p><p>"Mommy," he sighed.</p><p>Castle chuckled and shifted, moved to sit beside her in the narrow space on the couch. She had to shift just so he could fit, but his attention was on James.</p><p>"I think at some point we'll be testing this stuff out," he said quietly. "Asking them questions. It's important to understand how it affects them, their development, their personalities. But - this one - he's learned a pretty valuable coping skill from his mama. Haven't you, little wolf?"</p><p>Little wolf. She'd forgotten, somehow, about that wolf cub at the vet's. They were supposed to-</p><p>"James can shut himself down. And - others too, I think. He does it to Wyatt, that is for sure."</p><p>"What?" she gasped, her thoughts jerked rudely from the wolf. "He does what?"</p><p>"He shuts down?" Colin said, leaning forward, his eyes intent on James. "Are you shitting me? Now I'm fucking jealous of a baby."</p><p>"He shuts down," Castle nodded. "I think he picked it up from Kate. It's your defense mechanism, I've noticed, and it's - uh - fairly severe."</p><p>"I.." She sucked in a breath and stared at him, swallowed through the dryness in her throat. "I guess..."</p><p>"With this kind of ability," Eastman said quietly. "It makes sense that your patterns of thought would imprint on him. In utero, I would guess. Impressionable minds, all that."</p><p>Her chest tightened, her fingers curling at the back of James's neck.</p><p>Colin swiped a hand down his face. "Well, look at that. Kate Beckett, you did good."</p><p>Her head came up, surprise coloring her face. </p><p>He shrugged. "I wish my mom had shut the fuck down. Maybe I'd know how in the hell to keep my shit together."</p><p>-----</p><p>They set up a kind of war room in the kitchen, Carrie spreading old maps across the table and Colin pulling up his research on the laptop. They coordinated locations and data with Eastman, who had a few things to add from his own insider recollections of Black's facilities.</p><p>Meanwhile, Kate and Castle began making a list of known associates, a kind of family tree of elixir-related individuals, people who had worked on the long-range super soldier program as well as those Kate remembered from the facility. Eastman leaned over to make additions, listing as many trainers, doctors, and specialists as he'd encountered.</p><p>It was a much tighter network than they'd thought. </p><p>"Saber," Castle murmured, rubbing his temple. For how damn complicated the program was, had been throughout his lifetime, the number of people involved had been severely controlled. No wonder Eastman had lasted 73 days with Beckett. His father seemed loathe to replace his veterans.</p><p>"He's dead," Eastman offered.</p><p>From across the table, Colin snorted. "We know. We fucking killed him."</p><p>Carrie went still. She had given the boys the hedgehog to play with, and when Colin had spoken, she'd had one eye on Wyatt who was cuddling it rather fiercely. Now she met Kate's gaze and seemed to study her. "I think he probably deserved it."</p><p>At Castle's side, Kate rubbed two fingers in the wood, swallowing hard. </p><p>He knew this was rough on her, difficult to process. It was a new thing for her, different to have someone look in her the eye and say she'd been wronged. More than wronged. To say the things they'd done to her were worth taking lives over. Risking lives. She'd been told by his father for so long that she was nothing more than a brood mare, and she'd taken some of that brainwashing to heart.</p><p>"Does - anyone deserve it?" she asked. "Aren't we all so... such awful people to each other? I stabbed Castle in the back and yet-"</p><p>"Kate," he sighed, wrapping his fingers around her arm, shaking his head.</p><p>"I just don't know that I can say that three years of captivity are worth brutally murdering a scientific community that's roughly the population of a small town," she stressed.</p><p>"More like a ghost town," Castle muttered. </p><p>"Castle," she whined. </p><p>He lifted an eyebrow at her. "It's a relatively small group. All I'm saying."</p><p>"And I'm saying - look, we're here because I said no, no, we're not killing Mark and Carrie. They were innocent-"</p><p>Eastman growled. "Not that you'd have taken me-"</p><p>She shot him a glare that actually made Eastman back off. "There might be others. People who just didn't know. People who deserve mercy. Or - not even deserve it. Who deserves mercy? No one deserves it. But... but... jail time or - or - there's a system in place to keep us from being murderers, to keep us a civilized people." </p><p>The table fell quiet. She was talking to a bunch of spies, and Castle, for one, had been trained to not think in such rosy overtones about the governmental process, the judicial checks and balances. Because in his line of work, he was the check.</p><p>"No, I understand," Carrie told her. "It weighs on your conscience, because you are a good person. But these men did very bad things to you, Kate, and there isn't a justice system equipped to handle this - not without repercussions that I don't think you could survive. Not without some serious compromises to your security and liberty. And the boys'. For the rest of your lives."</p><p>Kate subsided, her hands flattening on the table. He knew that it looked like four against one, that they were all arrayed against her on this, and he was beginning to realize the scary-crazy courage it took her to speak her mind. Not to speak up, speak out - no, she'd done that, often, with predictably terrible results. He'd seen the way she lashed out, the way she could twist around his words, the way she pushed everyone's buttons. That had been her defense. But to speak her mind.</p><p>To say what she honestly felt. What she believed in her heart. How terrifying, how vulnerable.</p><p>"Okay, Kate," he said, breaking into the ongoing conversation Eastman and Colin were having with Carrie. "Okay, tell me what we do with them. Tell me what you want. This is your show, your justice."</p><p>She exhaled with a shaky smile, a crooked shrug of her shoulders. "I don't - I don't know. I'm not helpful, I know that, but I just - you said it, Castle. Justice for what they did to us, to the boys, to you and your brothers, to the people who lived under his tyranny. But not vengeance. I don't - see profit in vengeance."</p><p>"Bad karma," Eastman murmured.</p><p>She shivered. "Yes. Bad - bad karma."</p><p>"I don't believe in karma," Colin huffed.</p><p>Castle wasn't sure he had ever believed in anything before. But now. "Bad karma," he said, rolling it around on his tongue.</p><p>Kate gestured to James who was pushing magnets around on the fridge, apparently not as interested in the hedgehog as his brother. He still clutched his rag doll in one fist. "If - say it comes back on them, what we decide here, today. Say Saber and all the people who worked for him, knowing what was done to me, done to my parents, right - that's - there is a need for justice. I want justice. But vengeance... all I see is their children rising up with the same - same grief and anger I have, that burning inside to make the person pay for what they did, and those children coming to find my sons. My sons who - are innocent of all of this. But involved in it anyway."</p><p>His sons. Innocent of all of this, and yet involved anyway. "I've never had to think about long-term effects before," he admitted to the quiet table. "I just never - it's always been a mission, complete the mission, do the next mission. If I was assassinating a political leader or turning an informant, didn't matter, it was an objective. I don't know that I know how to keep those boys safe from fallout. I don't know how to make it safe for them. Except by this. Eliminating everyone who ever stood in those halls."</p><p>Kate slumped, as if she'd given up, but Castle laid his hand on her knee under the table and stroked.</p><p>"But you're right," he told her. "You're right. There is a line. It's right to have lines. Carrie said it - you're a good person. So we'll follow your lead."</p><p>Eastman shifted in his seat, finally leaned forward. "I can maybe offer some advice?"</p><p>All four sets of eyes turned to him. </p><p>"Our primary goal, I think we all agree, is that this never happens again. We burn documents, we ruin computers, we trash systems of communication and storage devices. We take it down. But in that round-up is a very real threat to you, yourself, Kate. To you because you were the program, and to those boys because they were its future. And that's three innocent people in the mix of all of this that we won't discount, and we won't overlook. But let's get creative on the how for these goals. Let's start talking outside the box, non-black-ops parameters. Let's start talking about how we keep people quiet through other means."</p><p>Kate let out a choked breath. "Yes, yes, please. That." Her eyes came to him, wide and pleading and completely soul-shredding. "Castle, let's do that."</p><p>Before he could respond, Wyatt let out a scream.</p><p>The whole table jerked to their feet, all of them scrambling towards the boy who was seated on the linoleum, his hands empty and his face in shock.</p><p>And then James started giggling, helpless, breathless giggles that made him sag against the refrigerator, giggles that were then immediately caught by Wyatt, whose whole body twitched and moved and-</p><p>The hedgehog poked its pink nose up out of the collar of Wyatt's shirt.</p><p>-----</p><p>Getting creative was an exercise in frustration.</p><p>They spent the rest of the morning arguing over where the line would be drawn and who deserved mercy, who didn’t. Would Alex and Ben fall under Castle and Colin’s grace, or would they have to be sacrificed in the name of hiding secrets? </p><p>In the end, it was Carrie’s voice that rose above the rest, pointing out that Kate had to have the elixir sooner rather than later, and more than that, she needed knowledge, not just the serum. She needed someone who knew what the fuck was going on in her body - not vengeance.</p><p>The whole table went quiet at that. There really wasn’t anything to say against it. Carrie’s insistence on approaching Alex Black was both terrifying and also appealing to Kate - and she could tell it was getting to Castle.</p><p>Confronting demons, that kind of thing. His and hers both. </p><p>He didn’t want to, she knew, but Carrie was right - hitting up random facilities (possible facilities) in the hopes of getting lucky just wasn’t going to cut it. </p><p>“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Castle said gruffly. He rubbed his hand down his face and growled. “He’s the golden son. He’s - the public face of Black’s fucking empire, isn’t he?”</p><p>“I can’t believe you think that’s a question,” Colin muttered. “Seriously, Richard. We have known this our whole fucking lives. He knows every damn financial backer, every dignitary, every foreign government that Black did business with.”</p><p>Eastman jerked upright in his chair, leaning forward on the table. “Are you saying the super soldier program extended outside the bounds of the Department of Defense?”</p><p>Castle and Colin both leveled him with a look. </p><p>Kate hadn’t quite thought about who else might have had an interest - a literal monetary interest - in this program. In her, and her sons. “Are they going to come after us?”</p><p>“Who?” Castle said. “There’s no one. He was a fucking asshole, but he was a patriot. He did everything in the name of the good ole US of A. Excused everything. Every damn thing I did was to keep America on top. How little it matters in real life.”</p><p>She felt uncomfortable with this kind of discussion, mostly because her parents hadn’t been particularly patriotic, but neither had they flaunted the rules. They’d been lawyers, beholden to the Constitution in a way that often bordered on zealotry. She knew that much. But Justice was an absolute and not confined to a set of rules written on a parchment three hundred years ago.</p><p>“Well,” Eastman sigh, “thank God for Black’s patriotism.”</p><p>“One less thing to worry about,” Colin muttered. “So. Alex.”</p><p>The adults all looked at each other around the table, but no one offered a plan of attack. </p><p>Kate felt a tug on her jeans and glanced down, found James with his rag doll in one hand. She bent down and picked him up, settling him in her lap. Wyatt abandoned the hedgehog curled up in its box and came for them too, not wanting to be left out, and she had to nudge Castle to get him to pay attention, pick up his son. Wyatt wasn’t entirely happy to not have her, to share with his brother, and he leaned out for them.</p><p>She couldn’t help think about how they’d gone first to Alex and Ben in the city, how Castle had - at one point - trusted his brothers.</p><p>“We should just go ask them,” she said, brushing the hair back from Wyatt’s face. He whined at her and she shook her head. “Show up on his doorstep.”</p><p>Colin shook his head. “We can’t show up on his doorstep if he’s the new fucking head of this program. He’ll have people watching him, people who will want to take over if Alex makes a misstep, people who will appropriate the boys, no doubt, the second you show up.”</p><p>“So maybe not right on his doorstep,” she said. “But you’re brothers. You all are brothers. You can’t tell me there’s not a meeting place, a rendezvous. A just in case?”</p><p>Castle cut his eyes to Colin.</p><p>“There is,” Kate said, straightening up. She looked around the table and then to Colin. “That’s what we’re doing. Set it up, Col. A meeting. We just need to talk to him. He called, didn’t he?, he called and told us about drinking the pedialyte. All we have to do is talk to him.”</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter 19</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Colin stood in the driveway beside the Jeep, hands on his hips, talking to Rick. Kate watched from the screen door, James on her hip, the boy unwilling to let her go. </p><p>Everyone had, by unspoken agreement, gone to their corners, turned inward to lick their wounds. Carrie had promised to take them out to the barn when she fed the goats after lunch, but until then, each one of them had retreated. Eastman and Carrie had Wyatt with them as they made a tour of the property. A perimeter check, Castle had called it, but Carrie had just stared at him, mouth open, until Eastman had shook his head and said, Sometimes you just need a turn around the land.</p><p>Kate chewed on her bottom lip as Colin shoved Castle’s shoulder, but of course, it barely moved the man. She couldn’t tell with Colin, nothing real ever showed on his face, and Castle had his back to her - she’d have been able to gauge the tenor of the conversation if she could just see his eyes.</p><p>“Mommy, tiss.”</p><p>Kate startled, turning to James on her hip. He was holding up his rag doll to her face, and she laughed, surprised but willing. “Kiss, huh?” She leaned in and pecked the ratty sweatshirt she’d fashioned into a doll. “How’s that, baby?”</p><p>He smiled shyly and tucked the doll against his chest, fell into her so that his head was against her shoulder. She patted his back, kissed him too, but when she looked back to the scene outside, Colin was getting into the Jeep.</p><p>“Tiss, Mommy.”</p><p>Kate huffed, glancing to James again. He was holding out his rag doll, like she hadn’t already done this. “Fine. Kiss.” She leaned in and gave it a quick touch of her lips. “How’s that? Where’d you learn to kiss it, anyway?”</p><p>“Daddy. Tiss.”</p><p>She turned but Castle wasn’t anywhere close; he was still standing in the driveway, watching Colin leave for parts unknown, off to contact their errant brothers.</p><p>“Daddy’s outside. You see him?”</p><p>“Daddy. Mommy. Tiss.”</p><p>She went still, thinking, and then she turned slowly to James. “Mommy and Daddy kiss. Is that what you mean?”</p><p>James held up the rag doll again, pushing it into her face. “Tiss.”</p><p>“Is this a game?” she muttered, but she kissed it, kissed it again, again and again until James started giggling. “A game, huh? You want to play? I can play. Let’s play, baby.”</p><p>Kate cupped the side of his face and turned away from the screen door, heading for the stairs. James giggled and curled against her chest, wriggling down in happiness as she mounted the steps.</p><p>“All your toys are up here. Daddy packed them for you.”</p><p>“Daddy,” he hummed.</p><p>“Yeah, he thought of everything.”</p><p>“Daddy, eep.”</p><p>“Daddy drove the Jeep, but now Colin is driving it.” She reached the second story and moved down the hall to the guest bedroom, opening the door with a nudge of her shoulder. “Let’s see what we have to play with.”</p><p>James wriggled down from her arms when she leaned over. He was off and running for the bag of all the boys’ stuff. </p><p>“Kate.”</p><p>She spun around and saw Castle just outside the door, haunting the hallway. She reached out her hand for him, and he came sliding inside only to have James barrel between them, clutching their legs.</p><p>“Daddy, Mommy, tiss.”</p><p>“If you insist,” Castle murmured, smiling at her. </p><p>Kate felt the breath leave her the moment his hand cradled the back of her head, and then his lips touched hers, warm, raw, delicate.</p><p>Her knee bumped James’s head and he wriggled between her legs and away, allowing her to step into Castle. Lips, breath, a gentleness that was erotic. His tongue touched the seam of her mouth and she parted, opening to the deepening of their kiss.</p><p>Everything tingled, awareness washing through her. The heaviness of her breasts, the thickness of her lips, the urge to press herself against him everywhere.</p><p>Castle tipped her away. Her tongue touched her lip. His eyes traveled over her, came back up to meet her own.</p><p>“Maybe you and I can be exempted from the goat-feeding?”</p><p>She meant to laugh, but instead something needy came out of her mouth. Her cheeks flushed and Castle bent forward and put his tongue to the corner of her eye, bit the apple of her cheek.</p><p>“Fuck,” she whispered.</p><p>“I could...” He slid his fingers under her shirt and around the waistband of her jeans. She pitched her hips into him, breathing hard, trying to hang on to him by his biceps. “Hush, baby, don’t let on.”</p><p>She mewled softly into his chest, feeling his fingers in her panties, gliding between her legs. Her hips bucked as she went up on her toes, his hand worked against her.</p><p>“Castle, Castle,” she urged.</p><p>“You can’t keep quiet, can you?”</p><p>“No,” she wailed.</p><p>He closed his mouth over hers and shoved his tongue inside. She moaned, her sounds muffled, the bright intensity of this terrible pleasure ratcheting through her.</p><p>His fingers pushed into her sex and curled, rubbing hard at that swollen place, and she gasped around his tongue, arching, arching-</p><p>She climaxed and he caught her, against his chest, her vision still white with joy.</p><p>“Tiss!”</p><p>“Oh, God,” she husked.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle chuckled through the stranglehold of his need, leaned his forehead against Kate’s. “The second we’re clear, I’m taking you to a damn deserted island.”</p><p>She huffed, her fingers twisting in his shirt. “We seem to do okay even being constantly surrounded.”</p><p>He kissed the skin near his lips, glanced across her cheek. “I can show you better than okay.”</p><p>She groaned and snaked her arm around his neck, pressing her body to his. He had to shift his hand out of her pants and she gave a little gasp, coming up on her toes. “Okay wasn’t intended as a judgment of your skills. You’re quite a lot more than okay.” Her body rubbed against his. “What about you? How do we take care of you?”</p><p>“I’ll be alright,” he lied. </p><p>“We could go in the bathroom,” she murmured. “Shut the door on James in here with a few toys and then - you know - help you out.”</p><p>“Shit.” His intention hadn’t been at all to maul her. Never had been. No. Well. He’d intended to exert a little self-control and not maul her, that had been his intention, so clearly somewhere in the back of his head, mauling her had been a damn intense want.</p><p>“I could-” Her knuckles rubbed the front of his jeans.</p><p>“Or we could wait for the Eastmans to get back, feed the damn goats.”</p><p>“What if Mark wants to talk or something while Carrie is out with the boys? You’ll be edgy and irritable-”</p><p>“Me? Irritable?”</p><p>“You.” She smoothed her fingers at the back of his neck and rolled her hips as she kissed him. </p><p>He groaned into it, losing his determination to say no. “Ka-ate,” he husked.</p><p>“I want you. And we can either do it against the door, messy and loud, or I can jump up on the sink, or - oh - I can suck you off with my mouth - that would be clean-”</p><p>“Oh, God, you have to be quiet,” he growled. His whole body pulsed with need, a throb for every word out of her mouth.</p><p>She did go quiet, but he felt the heat of her against him, felt her eagerness that wasn’t even amusement - she wasn’t even playing him, she really did want him an obscene amount.</p><p>He wondered how much of this was the elixir affecting them. Both of them. Would they fuck like rabbits once she was weaned, once the healing properties faded from her system and she couldn’t bounce back like he could?</p><p>What kind of precedent was he setting here, what kind of pattern of unsustainable behavior for the future?</p><p>“Please,” she whispered.</p><p>“God.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her up; she immediately threaded her legs around his hips and hung on to him. </p><p>Castle backed out of the room, tossing a fast, calculating look at James. The boy still had his rag doll, but now a car was in the other hand. He was watching them as Castle shut the door on his face, and he ought to feel, right? He ought to feel bad that he was shutting up his son in the room so he could fuck the boy’s mother.</p><p>He didn’t feel bad at all.</p><p>“Counter, door, oral?” she said in his ear.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>-----</p><p>He went first for the door, because it was immediate, and because he was trying to close it anyway. The bathroom echoed with the sound of its slamming, but he couldn’t care, too entranced by the wicked play of her tongue on his neck.</p><p>He rocked his hips mindlessly into the cradle of her thighs, chafing her skin and his with the material of their pants. No time for finesse; he was very close to losing it.</p><p>He growled and pulled back, taking her with him to the bathroom sink, and he deposited her on the edge, stepping back only enough to unbutton his pants. Kate intruded only for a second before she saw the wisdom of doing their own, and she started wriggling her hips to get her own pants off.</p><p>She planted her foot on his thigh and lifted her hips, and he was stunned into admiration for her acrobatics even as she yanked her jeans right off her legs.</p><p>“Fuck me,” he rasped.</p><p>“Trying to be,” she snapped back. “Get moving, Castle.”</p><p>“Yes, ma’am.” He shoved his pants down, boxer briefs after them (he craved the feel of her inside thighs against the tops of his own, the erotic sensation of her kinky hair in friction against his skin). “Good enough. Come here.”</p><p>She had her panties around one knee, a foot propped on the sink to help her disrobe, but he took her just like that. He used a thumb and finger to spread her sex, her dripping wet folds, and she stiffened, only to let out a low whine as he thrust inside her.</p><p>“Oh, God, oh, please,” she panted. Her hips wriggled up into his, rocking ineffectually.</p><p>“Hang on, stay still a minute, Beckett. Different like this. I can’t thrust too hard or you’ll fall.”</p><p>“I don’t fucking care. You’ll catch me.” She clawed half-moons into his back, trying to get closer to him. </p><p>“I care,” he growled. “Stay fucking still.”</p><p>She whined but subsisted, her perch on the pedestal sink rather precarious. He had never hated antique vintage furnishings quite so much before. Even the time he’d gotten stuck in the dumbwaiter.</p><p>Castle leaned in, taking deep breaths to control his own urge to thrust, his cock milked by the contractions of her cunt. She rubbed her still-clothed breasts against his chest and gripped his shirt, but he had to get them exactly right here.</p><p>Because when he lost it, he knew he’d really fucking lose it. And he did not want her to fall.</p><p>Castle circled an arm around her, but he used his forearm to brace her spine, his palm planted between her shoulder blades, fingers tangling in the sweep of her hair. Erotic, that hair, the play of it over his hand and wrist. </p><p>He couldn’t help wrapping it around his fist and holding on.</p><p>Kate moaned.</p><p>She liked that.</p><p>His other arm he banded low at her back to keep her ass from sliding off the porcelain. “Keep one foot on the sink,” he breathed at her ear. “Gives you leverage. Keeps you steady.”</p><p>“Oh, God,” she moaned. She was already worked up, and he’d just fingered her. </p><p>“I don’t have any free hands like this,” he murmured, kissing softly at her neck. “So you need to bring your fingers into play.”</p><p>“My fingers?” she panted. Her hand gripped his ass and squeezed, and then slid between his cheeks. “This?”</p><p>“Whoa, fuck,” he growled, hips jumping at her touch. They both rocked, unbalanced, and she nearly toppled back into the sink bowl. “Not that, hell. I don’t need one more thing to fucking do me in. I need you to help us out here, Kate, and touch yourself.”</p><p>She froze. “Do - what?”</p><p>“I can’t get your clit like this. It won’t - be enough. It’ll only make you crazy, not quite what you need, hit or miss. So like this. Here let me show you. Don’t fucking move.”</p><p>She didn’t move, though he though there was quite a lot of lust-soaked shock in her inability, and not just that she was being obedient. He kept his arm braced at her spine and brought his other hand around, and in.</p><p>In.</p><p>She mewled.</p><p>He kissed that open, panting mouth, kissed her until she gave it back a little. “You with me?”</p><p>“Here,” she whispered.</p><p>“Like this.” He rubbed a light circle at her clit, coating the base of his cock with her arousal as he did. He was rigid and aching inside of her, especially with every tremor of muscles in her womb, but she had tilted her head down to watch him and he wasn’t going to disappoint her now. “You’re so swollen, and so sensitive, that your clit will hide if we let it.”</p><p>“Don’t let it,” she husked.</p><p>He smiled into the side of her face, kissed her for that. How sweet, how fucking dirty at the same time. “Very good, baby. Now listen, hold very still, no matter what I do.”<br/>“Oh, please,” she whimpered. “Just tell me, just do it. I need you.”</p><p>He shushed her with his tongue in her mouth, soft stroking to gentle her again. When he broke free, she tossed her head against his shoulder, rocking her hips a little despite his warning. </p><p>Castle peeled apart the lips of her sex until she could see the angry red-pink of her clit. “You’re going to press your clit down against me and you’ll feel it as I fuck you. Like this. I’ll go slowly as I withdraw.”</p><p>He shifted his hips back, thigh muscles trembling as he exerted control over himself. The hot, slick slide out of her was excruciating, made all the more so by his own thumb pressing her clit against him, and his finger and hers tangled up there as she felt it.</p><p>Her body was quivering, her teeth sank into his shoulder as he went. He could hear her muffled curses as he abraded her clit, and then he couldn’t keep it up any longer.</p><p>“Now you,” he said gruffly. “You do it. I need to fuck you now.”</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>-----</p><p>She found herself clutching the edge of the sink with one hand and pressing her own fingers against her sex, her slippery, impossible clit, as Castle fucked her hard.</p><p>Leaned back like this, she seemed to bring him with her, his body always coming after hers, his mouth all over her throat, the slope of her breasts. He fucked her without any real rhythm, without anything she could hold to, like he didn’t want to - or couldn’t - control it.</p><p>Her whole body was electric, sparks shooting up and out of her, igniting her blood. The noises he made as he fucked her, like he was trying to get inside, deeper inside, like he wanted to crawl inside her and never leave.</p><p>She gave up on her clit, the sloppy frustration of never getting it as good and wonderfully right as Castle had when he’d shown her, and instead she circled her fingers around his cock.</p><p>Castle bellowed, slamming so hard into her she smacked back against the mirror. Her fingers tightened on the base of him even as he withdrew, and something deadly and intense went through his eyes.</p><p>She circled him again, her own slick arousal coating her fingers, and he sobbed her name. </p><p>Kate stopped hanging on to the sink, used her legs instead to grip him, and she wrapped an arm around his neck. Castle whined her name into her neck for more, and she touched her mouth to his temple.</p><p>“You ready?” she husked. “Go, go, go. I’ve got you.”</p><p>He began fucking her again, practically grinding her down against the sink, but she had a hold of his cock, gripping him as he withdrew, squeezing and teasing him as he came in hard. </p><p>“Yes,” she groaned, hips jerking to meet his. Her fingers teased them both, fire licking her insides, and she felt herself tighten, tightening, ever more.</p><p>“Kate,” he gasped. “Kate, please.”</p><p>“I’m - so close,” she gasped. Her whole body was cramped and terrible and needy, and then he growled and bit her throat and she seized, climaxing with violence.</p><p>He yelled her name and chased right after, spilling right into her, release and relief for them both.</p><p>-----</p><p>His thumb pressed over and over her throat, and it took her too long to figure out where she was, what was happening.</p><p>He’d cradled her against his chest, her legs hanging loose from sink where she was still slumped. His thumb over and over her throat, rubbing.</p><p>“Castle,” she croaked, rousing now. She pressed her cheek to his chest and sighed. “You okay?”</p><p>“Me?” he startled. His arms tightened around her. “Yeah, love. I’m very good. Rocked my world.”</p><p>She laughed, how serious he sounded, but his hand cupped the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. She kissed the pocket of his black t-shirt and tried to sit up.</p><p>He kissed her softly, released her hair, combing it down her back. She tilted her head and looked up at him, and his face was raw and open, as if she’d somehow flayed him open to her. </p><p>She liked that.</p><p>His palms gripped her hips and lifted her off the sink, depositing her on her feet once more. Her knees shivered and she gripped his shirt, rubbing her face against the material. </p><p>“You tired?” he murmured, holding her up against him.</p><p>“Mm, don’t think so. Just feel good.” Everything felt loose inside her. Mellow. She very rarely could claim to feel mellow. Seemed an impossibility, but here it was.</p><p>“Can I dress you?”</p><p>She tilted her head back, surprised with him, at the strange request or maybe just the way he’d said it. But he combed the hair back from her face and kissed her, lingering, his breath warm. </p><p>“Is that okay?”</p><p>“Yeah, course,” she mumbled, her cheeks flushing. She gripped the edge of the sink and shifted her weight back, lifted a foot. </p><p>He lowered himself to his knees and caressed the back of her calf, her heart flipping over. His fingers were light, soothing, but so erotic it was hard to stay upright. With a kiss to her knee, he brought her panties up and touched the ankle of her other foot. She shifted her weight and lifted her foot for him, and now he pulled the silk of her panties all the way up.</p><p>His kiss at her belly button was delicious, but the kiss he pressed to the still weeping lips of her sex made her cry out and grip his hair. He licked at her, slid his tongue along her folds, and she felt her breath leave her.</p><p>Erotic wasn’t the word. Terrible. Wonderful. Necessary. He twisted the material of her panties around one thigh and nudged his nose against her, sucked at her sex with slow seduction. She mewled and clutched at him, trying to widen her thighs, but she couldn’t move. He had her pinned.</p><p>His tongue. Oh God. His tongue and the wetness he was drawing out of her - oh God - it was his own - it was his - he was eating her out.</p><p>“Rick,” she moaned.</p><p>His mouth worked against her, lips and tongue, and then the edge of his teeth so that she cried out. He rumbled something in answer and she keened, bowing forward over his head, trapping him there.</p><p>She gasped another breath, just one, and then burst apart in a wave of contractions, vibrations of pure joy running through her body.</p><p>-----</p><p>"Hi, Daddy!"</p><p>Castle jerked backwards when the boy stood waiting just inside the doorway. Behind him, Kate stumbled and clutched his shirt with both hands - he liked to think she was still getting her sea-legs after their interlude in the bathroom.</p><p>"Was that James?" she breathed, peeking around him. "Hey, baby, did you tell Daddy hi?"</p><p>"Hi, Mommy!"</p><p>"Hey," she laughed, moving past him for James. The boy was clutching both the rag doll and Wyatt's bunny, the poor thing he'd abandoned in favor of the hedgehog. "How happy are you, huh?"</p><p>"About as happy as we are, I'd guess," Castle commented wryly. She shot him a look for that, and he flushed, but shrugged his shoulders. "It's only true."</p><p>"Mommy," James insisted, and Kate obliged by picking him up. </p><p>Just then, they heard the sounds of Eastman and Carrie coming back through the porch and on into the living room, conversation and Wyatt's exuberance drifting up to them. Kate gave him a look and he grinned back.</p><p>"Timing is everything."</p><p>"So long as it doesn't look like timing is everything," she muttered, ducking her head away from James's grabbing hands.</p><p>Castle reached out and took the boy from her, settling him against his chest, and then touched two fingers to her throat. The red mark from his teeth was clearly visible, and as he stroked down her neck, she shivered.</p><p>"Did you mark me?" she murmured. Her voice was low, aroused, her eyes half-lidded as she leaned into him.</p><p>He collared her with his hand and brought her against his chest on James's other side, kissed her temple. "Yeah. I did. And I knew I was doing it."</p><p>"Good."</p><p>He shuddered then, the sensation of her going right through him, like a phantom limb, except he still had his cock, it was all there. He just could feel her like he was inside her, right this second.</p><p>"Stop that," she husked.</p><p>"I can't help it."</p><p>"They're looking for us," she breathed, her mouth against his jaw, her tongue darting out to touch him.</p><p>"You stop," he growled back.</p><p>"I'm stopping, stopping." And she did make the effort; she turned and buried her face in James's side, kissed his little leg, stepped away from him. The yearning was still there, though, the yearning like an ache - he could see it on her face, and he wasn't sure that was a good thing for the people down there to be seeing.</p><p>He gripped her neck and roughly kissed her. "Later, later," he promised, smudging her lips and finally pulling back. He had to force himself to turn around, James in his arms, and descend the staircase, calling down to the Eastmans that they were ready for the goats.</p><p>He felt Kate haunting his back, though she didn't touch him at all.</p><p>——</p><p>"We had an idea," Eastman said, standing back a little in the lean-to that sheltered the goats. Castle had squatted to help James and Wyatt feed the animals, their little bodies crowded back into his chest as they stood between the vee of his knees, and he kept his arms around them, guiding their hands forward.</p><p>"You had an idea," he said, not looking up at the man. Kate and Carrie had disappeared to the barn, something about the horse, and Eastman hadn't had a good line of sight on Kate yet. Castle realized he was primed for a fight, to stand his ground, all because of that damn hickey he'd left on her neck.</p><p>"Me and Carrie," Eastman clarified. "We've been talking."</p><p>Great.</p><p>"We think it'd be best if you left the boys here with her, and the four of us will divide into teams. Split our unit to go after two different yet equally important goals: one team to the facilities, rounding up the last of the program - be it elixir magically left lying around or be it personnel - and the other team to Alex."</p><p>Wyatt squealed as the bottle was pulled from his fingers, the boy practically climbing Castle to get away. He steadied his son and put a restraining hand against his belly, reached in quickly to snatch the bottle and hold it for Wyatt. He made sure to watch James's fingers as he got close to the other goat's bared teeth, feeding the two kids at once. The baby goats were still taking a bottle, eager for it, but Castle didn't quite trust the either of them - goats or boys. </p><p>"I don't think Kate will leave them," he said finally.</p><p>"Carrie said that too," Eastman sighed. "She - offered to go with you when you confront Alex."</p><p>"So you think Kate and I need to be the ones."</p><p>"I think Colin and I have the kind of skills that are best served hunting through these facilities. Colin already told me he knocked over one on his own. With his - mind thingie-"</p><p>"Mind thingie," Castle muttered.</p><p>"You know. Makes it a lot easier. But Alex. That will just have to be a set meeting. You know how to sway him, what to say. He needs to see Kate face to face, make it personal. Plus it keeps her out of the moral debate about what to do to these people."</p><p>"She might be right," he admitted, holding his sons against his chest as one of the goats bounded up, looking for more. "She might be right about leaving people alive. I don't know. But-"</p><p>"I don't see how."</p><p>"We left you alive."</p><p>Eastman grunted, and Castle knew he was thinking he and Colin would never have taken him, but the truth was, it would've been a toss up. Eastman fighting on his own land, for his wife's life, versus Castle and Colin, filled with the righteous anger of knowing what had been done to Kate. Toss up. Fifty-fifty. Though Castle knew he'd have killed the man. No problem. </p><p>"Mercy begets mercy," Eastman muttered. "You and she need to come up with a plan then. What you want us to do if not kill them all."</p><p>"We'll have a talk of our own," he promised.</p><p>"Talk about what?" came Kate's voice, and then she and Carrie came through the metal gate, carrying two more bottles for the boys.</p><p>"About what to do with the people left in the program," he sighed, glancing up.</p><p>Kate swallowed, and the action of her unease only highlighted the fierce red mark on her throat, the place where he had scraped his teeth so purposefully.</p><p>Eastman scowled. Scowled deeply. "Richard," he snapped. "God damn it. Can you not keep your fucking hands off her when you're under my roof?"</p><p>——</p><p>Carrie hurried forward, put a staying hand on Eastman's chest, and then went to the boys, giving them the bottles of milk for the goats.</p><p>But Kate - no. That wasn't okay with her. "It wasn't him who started it," she said hotly. "I did. I'm the one dragging him into the bathroom and locking the door."</p><p>"The bathroom," Carrie said, lifting an eyebrow. "Do I need to bleach anything?"</p><p>"Carrie," Eastman hissed.</p><p>"Oh, fuck," Castle groaned, standing and releasing the boys to Carrie. He looked like he was bracing himself. “Fuck.”</p><p>"No, actually," Eastman growled. "A little less of that, thank you very much. She's barely legal."</p><p>“Legal? Seriously?” Castle jabbed a finger in his face. "You're not her father."</p><p>"No? No, well, hers is gone,” Eastman roared. “And it's my fault, so now I am. Now I am. I’m what’s she got.”</p><p>Kate was rooted to the earth, her jaw dropping at the florid rage that burned up Eastman's face. She'd never seen him lose it before.</p><p>Her dad.</p><p>“No, fucking asshole, I’m what she’s got.”</p><p>“You don’t seem to be making wise decisions about any of this, so maybe you need to be schooled. Someone needs to show a little fucking care for her. You’re fucking her.”</p><p>“Don’t you fucking make judgments about her," Castle hissed. “About us.” He was advancing on Eastman. </p><p>Kate moved to intercept him but at that moment, Wyatt got loose of Carrie's grip, tossed the bottle aside and ran for his daddy.</p><p>“And anyway, she’s fucking me. Did you not hear her?”</p><p>Eastman growled and ran straight for Castle, head down, and Kate managed only to scoop Wyatt out of the way (though Castle had, to her spark of pride and relief, Castle had turned his head to look, to be sure Kate had him before he let Eastman tackle him).</p><p>Castle's back hit the metal bars of the gate with a clang, and Wyatt squawked his indignation, rigid in her arms. Kate checked Carrie - the woman had the collar of one goat in her hand, James tucked under her arm, though he squirmed, not happy either.</p><p>Castle rolled Eastman and had him pinned, but in a moment, Eastman had jabbed his throat and flipped him, and it now it was back and forth, one man on top, the straw flying, dirt in clouds around them. Like a damn cartoon.</p><p>"Castle," she called over the din of goats and men and babies. "Castle, for fuck's sake."</p><p>"Uck, uck, uck!" Wyatt chanted, tossing his fist in the air.</p><p>She made a move to get close, but Carrie stepped into her. "Not a good idea. They won't be able to stop in time. Stay back, sweetheart."</p><p>She hesitated. Castle bellowed with a blow to his jaw and rolled hard, came up on his feet and launched himself at Eastman still on the ground. Eastman lashed out with a roundhouse that caught Castle's kidney, but the tackle sent them both flying. After that, it was close quarters wrestling, both men in the dirt, side by side, legs locked around various limbs, grappling.</p><p>"Uck," Wyatt said patiently. Kate cupped the side of his face, turned her head to him just in time to see James juke Carrie's body and dash for the two men.</p><p>"Castle!" she warned, her voice breaking even as she lurched forward-</p><p>It was Eastman's whose trajectory skewed at her call, but Castle was the one to put himself in the path of the punch, blocking James and sending the boy sprawling back. Even as Castle took it, a hard hook to the ribs from his knees, he twisted his body and enclosed James in his arm, falling to the ground with the boy caught to his chest, his other hand planted in the dust.</p><p>Keeping James suspended above the ground, clutching his father.</p><p>"Enough," Carrie cracked. "Enough. Mark. In the house, right now."</p><p>Mark scrambled up, swaying on his feet, a bruise already forming around his eye, one lip busted open, an ear bloodied. </p><p>"Go," Carrie said through gritted teeth.</p><p>Kate sank to her knees with Wyatt, reached out to touch Castle's trembling body. He lifted his head, agony streaked across his face, but James was entirely unperturbed.</p><p>"Daddy, you," he was saying, rubbing his eyes into Castle's dirty shirt. </p><p>"It's okay," she said, her voice raw. "He's okay. Are you okay?"</p><p>"Fine," he got out. "I - just couldn't stop myself."</p><p>She leaned in and softly kissed the corner of his eye where it was already puffy. "I don't need you to fight him for me," she whispered. "But it's - kinda sweet anyway."</p><p>"James," he said gruffly.</p><p>"James is just fine. You caught him. You're a good man. You're both good men. Isn't that obvious by now?"</p><p>He nodded, still on his hand and knees, still clutching James against his chest with one broad arm. </p><p>"Daddy, you," James called out, snaking his arms around Castle's neck, trying to get higher. Castle rocked back to sit on his heels, and Kate realized they were alone in the goat pen. Babies - the kids - were coming up to Castle and nibbling at the straw in his hair.</p><p>She tried not to laugh. But one goat got too close and cropped near Castle's ear and he hissed, ducking, covering James with both hands.</p><p>"Daddy, you," he was saying, insistently.</p><p>"Castle," she said, nudging him. He still looked devastated. "Castle, I think that's how James says I love you."</p><p>Castle blinked and glanced down at their son, his hand coming up to cradle James's face. "You love - I love you too, James. I love you."</p><p>"Me," James said with that shy smile, ducking his head down against Castle and butting his chest.</p><p>Castle stared at her. "He loves me."</p><p>"Yeah, baby," she whispered, her throat tight. "They both do."</p><p>——</p><p>“Your lip is bleeding,” she said, her fingers exploring his jaw as he sat in a kitchen chair. “And your eyebrow.”</p><p>“I’m okay,” he repeated.</p><p>Kate stood over him, tilting his head to the side so she could look at the no-doubt purple bruise on his cheek. “Are you sure no ice?”</p><p>“Sure,” he said, trying to be gentle with James in his lap. “Has to get hot to heal.”</p><p>“Hot,” she echoed. Her fingers were like cool relief, and he closed his eyes. “Your blood?”</p><p>“Mm.”</p><p>He felt the butterfly wings of her fingers over his skin and the warmth of James in his arms; the boy hadn’t wanted to be put down. Wyatt was in the kitchen too, crawling through the rungs of the kitchen chairs, making up for lost time.</p><p>His kid had nearly gotten pummeled in a stupid macho fight.</p><p>“Everyone’s okay,” she whispered, a touch of her lips to his cheek where it burned the hottest. “We’re all okay.”</p><p>He nodded, her fingers catching his ear and curling, and he opened his eyes to find her, needing her, not able to hold it back. She kissed him, chaste, sweet, the sip of her lips like living water, and he heard the whine in his throat but couldn’t stop it.</p><p>“Hey, baby,” she told him. “Okay, enough. That’s enough. This done. It’s over.”</p><p>He closed his eyes again when she kissed him, a little more roughly, but his chest hurt and his face hurt and his kid had nearly gotten punched. What a hook like that would’ve done to him. God.</p><p>“Hush,” she said fiercely. “Right now. No more. I won’t have you doing this to yourself for no damn good reason. Open your eyes.”</p><p>He was startled enough to obey, staring up at her, and he felt James twitch in his arms, maybe equally surprised.</p><p>She glared at him for a full ten seconds, enough to be uncomfortable, enough to make him squirm, and then she straightened up and stalked out of the kitchen.</p><p>Castle deflated. Sinking back against the chair, he cradled James to his chest and dripped his chin to the top of the boy’s head. James had reacquired his rag doll - passed to him by Kate from some magical motherhood place unknown - and he snuggled his doll in the same way that Castle did the boy.</p><p>He sighed, tentatively touching his jaw with two fingers, the flame of his elixir-warped blood cells working to heal his bruises.</p><p>Would James have healed? Could a head injury be healed by some altered blood?</p><p>“You’re going to apologize-“</p><p>His head snapped up and here was Kate striding back through the kitchen with Eastman in tow. She literally had a grip on his shirt sleeve and had dragged him from the front mud room into the kitchen. Carrie was behind him, pushing. She looked about as warrior badass as Beckett, truth be told.</p><p>“Alright. Say it. Say you’re sorry.”</p><p>Castle flushed deep red and jerked his eyes to Eastman, back to Kate. He opened his mouth and she held up a finger.</p><p>“Not you. Though you were the instigator, that’s for damn sure. But he started it, tackling you. Mark. Say you’re sorry.”</p><p>“I’m not sorry.”</p><p>“I don’t fucking care,” she spat. “Say it.”</p><p>Eastman glared, though he didn’t quite have it in him to glare at Kate. And for some reason, that gained Castle’s sympathy.</p><p>Eastman gritted his teeth and looked at the wall. “I’m sorry you’re being an asshole to a woman who clearly deserves better.”</p><p>Carrie shoved him between the shoulder blades. “Don’t you be an asshole on top of things,” she said calmly.</p><p>“Woman,” he muttered, but it lacked all heat.</p><p>“I don’t want your apology,” Castle said. “I don’t need your apology. You know what you did, and you feel fucking awful for it, don’t you? Doesn’t help her, you know, feeling guilty as hell over it. Doesn’t help her.”</p><p>Eastman set his jaw, but his eyes met Castle’s.</p><p>Carrie moved behind him, pulled out a kitchen chair, nudged Mark to sit down. “I’m not going to suggest that either one of you are more right than the other,” she said quickly, holding up a hand when Kate started to protest. “We have serious concerns, sweetheart, about what you’re really able to - to process emotionally right now. And while I think it’s clear that he loves you, that he wants to do right by you, we’re not sure it’s best for you.”</p><p>Kate’s mouth dropped open.</p><p>Castle felt sick.</p><p>James mewled in his arms and buried his face in his rag doll, and Castle tried to - tried to clamp down on the feeling, tried to bury it somewhere, somehow, but he didn’t have that ability like she did. He’d just gotten his damn emotions turned on and they were a fucking flood, and he felt sick.</p><p>“I don’t care what you think is best for me,” Kate said. Her voice was like ice. “I’ve had nice women just like you telling me for three damn years what’s best for me. Just lie still. Just let them do this. It would go so much easier for you if you didn’t fight us so hard. I don’t give a damn what you think is best for me.”</p><p>Horror washed through him. James had curled tight around his doll, and Castle pressed the boy to his chest, tumbling hard through sick, terrible grief.</p><p>Carrie’s lips pressed in a line. “Alright. Maybe we deserve that - that comparison. But I won’t back down on this just because you’re angry, or scared, or so deeply wounded. I am fighting for you, Kate, because clearly those other nice women never did. You have only just gotten free, sweetheart. This man is ten years older than you, and he’s part of this thing. He’s all caught up in everything that happened there. He’s-“</p><p>“No,” he croaked. “No. You…” He was shaking so hard he couldn’t make his mouth work. Maybe that was the bruise, the swollen puff of his jaw. “You’re twisting it all up.”</p><p>“Kate,” she said softly. “I know you see him as some kind of rescuer, knight in shining armor, but-“</p><p>“I didn’t rescue her,” he protested, his throat dry. “I came in and it was already done, she was already free. She could have killed me but - but she didn’t.”</p><p>“Kate. I’m going to be blunt. You have two children whom this man is the father of. And his father implanted them, his father set this up. Whatever sexual relationship you have right now, after three years of slavery, Kate, is not consensual. Not-“</p><p>“Stop.” Kate cried out and pressed her hands to her face. “Stop. Stop.”</p><p>Castle bowed his head, slowly slid James to the floor despite his whimper of protest. He - had to ready to - whatever happened next. If he had to - leave. If she needed him to leave. Or if - if she fell apart and he had to catch her?</p><p>But, oh God, she would probably - he would have to go. The Eastmans would make him go. He had - not - he had not raped her - he had not raped her - it was so far, far from that, but he was - breathing through glass shards here, and if he felt like this, if he thought, then Kate-</p><p>“You want blunt?” Her voice was cracked, raw. “Here’s blunt. The only time I feel good about myself is when we have sex. The only time I feel like I can survive this day is when he touches me. The only time I don’t hear that fucking bastard’s voice in my head is when Castle crowds out everything else.”</p><p>He lifted his eyes to her face, filled with the electric life surging within her. She didn’t take her eyes off Carrie or Eastman, but she bent down and picked up James from where he was clinging to Castle’s knees, trying to get back in his lap.</p><p>She turned then and deposited James in his arms. “Don’t let go, Castle.”</p><p>“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No. I was only getting ready.”</p><p>She cupped the side of his face and she kissed him. Her tongue teased at his lips but came no father, and then she pulled away. “No more fist-fights.” She stood up and faced the Eastmans. “If you continue to think that way, then we’ll have to leave.” Her lips pressed together and her jaw worked; Castle could see her eyes scanning for Wyatt. </p><p>He looked himself, saw the boy had crawled out from under the table and was making love to the plastic terrarium that housed the hedgehog, entirely out of the loop.</p><p>Kate huffed. “But I’ll be kidnapping that damn hedgehog when we go.”</p><p>“You’re not going,” Eastman said gruffly, reaching out. Castle flinched and lurched forward, but Eastman already had her, drawing her hard into his chest for a hug Kate merely endured. “You’re not going. You need him, fine. Fine. You need him. I don’t understand, but I can accept. I just want to help.”</p><p>——-</p><p>Eastman had ice; Castle just had her, side by side on the couch as they carefully talked around a kind of truce. Castle gave what details he could about Alex, and she could see that he had the wild hope that his brother would come clean, give them further information to dismantle the program.</p><p>She also felt the way he listed into her, as if he needed to rest. She didn't think that was it though; she thought he was playing it up for her sympathy. </p><p>She found that amusing. Wyatt had those same tendencies, she'd noticed, his pathetic hunched shoulders into her chest, his fake little cries. This was Castle's version of that.</p><p>"Actually," he said, his hands out to Wyatt who was dropping blocks into his cupped palms, "I don't know whether or not we can dismantle this thing. I don't know that it's our job - well, I mean, the job of a spy. It might be that we're forced to take this to some kind of Congressional oversight committee, someone who can drag this into the governmental sphere but still keep it off the record."</p><p>Eastman shook his head. "Even off the record, those congressional hearings are recorded."</p><p>"But Senate," Kate said, taking up the thread of Castle's idea. "Those records aren't published in the public domain for thirty years. Thirty years is long enough for these boys to grow up and - and defend themselves, if they have to."</p><p>Castle turned to her, eyebrow raised. "Yeah?"</p><p>She nodded. "Yeah. Don't you think?"</p><p>"Well, fine, okay," Eastman drawled, dragging their attention to him. "Maybe we get a Senate hearing, maybe. But we have to contact the Attorney General's office - we'd have to get them involved to even start that kind of process. That's more people who have to know this story. More people whose mouths will run. More people to ask questions." </p><p>Kate shrank back in the couch, chewing on her bottom lip. Wyatt placed a red block in Castle's hands and clapped, beaming at all of them. She leaned forward, pulled out of her tension by his delight, and kissed his forehead. "Look at you, so smart."</p><p>Castle nudged her shoulder with his. She glanced at him. His poor face was mottled with bruising, bright starbursts along his jaw. He looked worse than Eastman right now, but it was only because Castle was healing.</p><p>"Is that what you want us to do?"</p><p>"I don't know," she admitted. "I - really want to just do something. You know? I can't - I can't just hide out not going anywhere, not doing anything, not-"</p><p>"Living," he supplied, a flick of his eyes over the boys that she knew he hadn't meant to give away.</p><p>"They're living, that's living," she promised, but-</p><p>But.</p><p>"I can't sit at home, no matter how... I can't keep doing nothing to help myself."</p><p>"I know," he said. Simple answer, no other words needed. He knew. He was like her. "We could go the incredibly official and public record route and get the AG's office involved. I know more than a few people there. Or, we could go the way less public route, and I can get the CIA involved. I am the people there."</p><p>"You are?" she said, lips flirting with a smile. </p><p>He scowled. "Mostly am. I hadn't - well, it hadn't occurred to me to make this official CIA business. But I could, I can do that. An official CIA oversight task force, specifically comprised to clean up the illegal mess my father made of things."</p><p>"What about the Department of Defense?" Eastman inserted. "They're the ones who are really involved in this."</p><p>"Joint task force," Castle said easily. He looked like he already had half of this planned already, the gears turning in his head. "We fucking live or die by those things. JTF with the AG's office, since they have authority to prosecute, Kate, if you that's what you want. Or I can run a black ops unit and burn out the worm."</p><p>Black ops unit sounded both electrifying and also safe. "For the boys' sake, maybe... keep it as quiet as we can," she admitted. "No AG's office if that's - I think that would be bad for us."</p><p>Castle nodded, leaning into her shoulder once more, even as Wyatt tried to stack his blocks in the curved cup of Castle's hands. "We can do that. I can do that. Black ops, it is. I - well, I guess that makes you officially my asset."</p><p>——</p><p>It wasn't that she thought there was something wrong with him, but she - kind of thought maybe there was something wrong. With him.</p><p>He was shy.</p><p>Maybe James got that from him too. But Castle was being shy. He still touched her, but there was hesitation barely discernible in the way he curled his fingers in her belt loop or brushed his hand down her back. Barely. But there. Shy.</p><p>Lunch was late, nearly two by that time, and she realized the boys were struggling to stay awake. Struggling to be good, really, fighting very hard for control of themselves. She barely spoke as she fed them turkey meat - not deli, but an actual turkey - and instant mashed potatoes. They opened their mouths like little birds rather than do it for themselves, and she worked fast so they could be done and take a nap.</p><p>James hadn't quite recovered from flinging himself into that wrestling  match, and then she'd seen the way he had wilted when Carrie and Eastman had confronted them-</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Oh, was that it?</p><p>Castle. James was reflecting Castle.</p><p>She sneaked a look at the man sitting on the other side of Wyatt, the man who was solemnly closed-mouthed as he nudged the boy into finishing his mushy green beans. Carrie had pulled out leftovers - she had said they were leftovers - and it was a big meal. Kate hoped the boys slept.</p><p>And while they did - maybe she and Castle could have some time together. She needed him, needed him with her, needed him inside her. Reaffirm what she knew to be true, that which had taken a hit this morning before lunch.</p><p>"Castle," she said quietly. "Take James up for me? I'm coming with Wyatt."</p><p>He nodded, one quick, barely there glance to meet her eyes before he leaned over and plucked James up from the phone book in his chair.</p><p>Kate made a production of cleaning up Wyatt - the boy had actually made a production himself - pulling bits of green bean from his shirt and lap, wiping off his face and hands, studiously not looking at Mark or Carrie while Castle climbed the stairs with James.</p><p>And then she took Wyatt and stood, glanced to the Eastmans. She pressed her palm to the boy's back, seeking courage and words to say this right, to make them believe her.</p><p>"If you ever hurt him again - and can't you see how much you've hurt him? If you ever do that again, I will leave and I will never come back." She worked her jaw, suppressing the urge to say and then you'll be fair game. She couldn't - that wasn't how a relationship worked. And if she wanted the Eastmans for the boys' sake, to have someone out there who knew about them and what they could do. "I know you think you're looking out for me, but for three years, all I've done is look out for me."</p><p>Carrie put down her fork, her face falling. "Kate."</p><p>"I saw my mother murdered in front of me. I worked for a year to be good enough to go after her killer, and it turned out all I was doing was falling in line to be exactly what Black wanted me to be. A stable broodmare. I have lived a thousand years in three, I have made awful mistakes and come out the other side - with - with this. My sons are free from him and he's dead. And more. They have their father who is a good man, a good man, and I won't let you ruin that for any of us."</p><p>"No, Kate, sweetheart, we won't ruin it for you," Carrie said softly. "I promise. We won't."</p><p>She took a deeper breath, and even though the Eastmans looked chagrined, Kate didn't trust it. "Keep your promise. I don't need it. What I need is for you to leave Rick alone. Leave him alone. Do you not see how he does whatever I ask? God, it's scary, the power I have over him. So just - just back off. Give us time."</p><p>"We'll back off," Eastman said, nodding once. "We'll give you time. Just don't cut us out. I do feel responsible, and I take it seriously, my part in this. More than that, Kate, I admire and respect you. So it's time I respect your decisions, regardless of my personal feelings. Just - like your father would have done."</p><p>Kate shifted Wyatt to her other hip, antsy now to be out of here, away from two people who kept looking at her like - like she was suspect. Like her emotions and decisions were suspect. </p><p>"Kate," Carrie said, calling to her in quiet voice. Calling and keeping Kate there just with the insistence, the firm persuasion. "Nothing else will be said. We won't even talk about it - not behind your backs, even to ourselves. It's done, it's over. But I want you to know that if you ever need us, or just want us, you can come to us. Or we'll come to you. No questions asked, no I told you so, nothing."</p><p>Her mom would have said  I told you so. Her mom loved to catch Katie in those traps. I told you so, Katie, what did I say? </p><p>Mark and Carrie weren't her parents. Her father would never have hit Castle; her mother would have scolded her up and down and fumed about it, yelled back at her, the two of them arguing it like a case until someone got persuaded. And then a tearful reconciliation. Not this. Not a strange, agree to disagree truce.</p><p>But she would take it. She had already gambled with the boys' lives by telling the Eastmans about their abilities. And she needed them to fall in line, she needed them to not go behind her back in a misguided attempt to help her.</p><p>"I've trusted you," she admitted, her jaw working. "I don't know if you get that. I brought my sons to you, and I brought Colin and Castle to you, and I trusted you. To not hurt us. But you did. You hurt us. What I need from you is just - trust me."</p><p>Carrie's mouth opened but nothing came out.</p><p>Kate hoped she hadn't been very stupid, coming here. Selfish. She had wanted to see Eastman, to show him what she'd done, to prove something, to make him proud, because she missed her own father so damn badly.</p><p>She missed her dad. She had thought she'd have him, right here with her, so proud of her, so overjoyed to have her back, home safe. And now she had no home. She was - hanging on by her fingernails here.</p><p>"Kate."</p><p>She turned her head away, moving for the living room and the stairs, escape.</p><p>"Kate," Eastman called, getting up and following her. </p><p>She mounted the bottom step, holding Wyatt tightly to her chest.</p><p>"Kate, honey, I trust you."</p><p>She swallowed roughly and glanced over her shoulder at him. "I don't believe you."</p><p>——</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter 20</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He had paused at the top of the stairs with Wyatt restless and rubbing his face against Castle's chest. But he had heard something determined in Kate's voice and he had just wanted to know.</p><p>He was a damn spy, this was what he did.</p><p>He had just wanted to know.</p><p>And so he wavered there, torn between listening to her defend him in that cold as ice, deadly voice and going back down there and defending her, shielding her from it, from how the Eastmans looked at her.</p><p>He heard her approaching and had to abandon his post, moving swiftly down the hall with his heart pounding, his lips pressed to Wyatt's ear just to keep them both quiet. He opened the bedroom door and went through, not bothering to close it, wondering if she had kept James down there with her on purpose, to make the Eastmans feel it.</p><p>He knelt down at the boys' pallet on the floor and lowered Wyatt to the blankets and sheets, watched the boy crawl in and grab his bunny, snuggling it. But Wyatt didn't lie down, he came back to Castle and tried to climb his father's thighs, back into his lap.</p><p>He just - had to let him, holding Wyatt like a baby against his chest, grateful he had something to hold on to at all. </p><p>If you ever hurt him again-</p><p>And yet, how could she not see how much more important she was than him? What were his stupid hurt feelings in comparison to the ways she'd been used and abused and deserved so much better? She deserved better. The crux of it was him. He had ensnared himself in her healing process, he had touched her and made her feel things - just as she had done the same to him - and it was impossible now to separate them. He had to be better. He had to be better.</p><p>Wyatt whined against his chest. It was taking a long time, whatever the last of it was. He had heard Kate leaving the kitchen and had assumed it was done, but someone had more to say.</p><p>Castle leaned over and lowered Wyatt back to the blankets, but he stayed close, laying his hand heavy on Wyatt's back to keep him settled. He rubbed Wyatt's neck with a thumb, propped up on one elbow over the kid, trying to find a way to settle himself as well.</p><p>"Is he asleep?"</p><p>"Almost," he choked out, looking over his shoulder. She was coming through the doorway with James on her hip, and absolutely none of that icy resolve was in her face. Completely gone. She shut the bedroom door behind her and came towards him, lowering herself to her knees.</p><p>She leaned in, knocking her elbow and ribs into his hip, nearly throwing him off balance, so unprepared was he for that move.  "James is about to drop. Be good for them to sleep."</p><p>He nodded, lowering his eyes to Wyatt on his belly, mouth sucking at two fingers. He stroked the back of the kid's head, brushing hair from his ear, and leaned in to kiss the boy. "You'll sleep for Mommy, won't you?"</p><p>"Mama," he mumbled around his fingers, sounding like a baby again. James wriggled down next to him, smashing his body to his brother's, the rag doll practically buried under him as he curled up. Castle touched his back as well, something like good-night, and wondered if maybe he should just stay right here.</p><p>Just keep out of everyone's way for a while.</p><p>Kate slid away from James and came back into Castle's side. He was surprised, but he cupped her shoulder and she leaned in against him. Her face nuzzled at his neck, took his breath away.</p><p>"Are you going to stay with me?" she whispered.</p><p>"Yes, of course," he croaked, his heart flipping.</p><p>She turned into him and snaked her arm around his neck, her breath fast against his cheek. "Then stay with me, come back to me, Castle."</p><p>"I'm here," he said roughly, gripping her hips and burying his head in the soft fall of her hair. "I'm here."</p><p>"Come back to me." Her free arms tightened at his neck and her hips rocked. "Come back inside me where you belong. I want you."</p><p>He sucked in a harsh breath, felt himself trembling where they met, not least of all the hot place at their groins, clashing and rubbing. "Kate."</p><p>"Stand up, Castle. Stand up and take me to bed."</p><p>——</p><p>Kate lightly touched her lips to his neck. So lightly. His pulse fluttered under her kiss. His body was bowed over hers, cradling her in his lap on the edge of the bed. She slowly rubbed her hands under his shirt, trailing her fingers up and down his spine until he mewled.</p><p>He was so responsive to her, so in to her, his body crowding around hers, waiting for the next thing she did.</p><p>“Baby, let’s get this shirt off,” she murmured at his jaw. He whined and shrugged his shoulders, working in concert with her hands. Up and over, and he blinked owlishly and stared at her, leaned in to kiss under her eye.</p><p>She released his shirt from her fingers, brought her hands back to his face to cup his cheeks. He didn’t stop looking at her, eyes soaking her up, his grip heavy on her thighs.</p><p>She rubbed her thumbs under those beseeching eyes, so blue and yet so troubled, and she touched another kiss to his mouth to smudge out his hesitance. </p><p>He gave it back, his tongue sliding against hers, that careful exploration that sent shivers to her spine and curled in her guts. She brought her knees up, tightening around his ribs, bare skin burning through her jeans. </p><p>“Pants,” she husked, nudging his mouth away. “Pants, sweetheart, need those off.”</p><p>“Yes,” he croaked, nodding against her. His lips touched her ear and sucked, a tentative thing, as if he wondered if he were allowed. She cradled the back of his head and let herself rock her hips against the hard edge of his thigh as he trailed hot kisses down her neck.</p><p>“Oh,” she said faintly. “Oh, yes, that’s good.”</p><p>He licked across the red mark at her throat that had started everything, making her groan, the sensation of his tongue recalling the burn between her legs.</p><p>“Pants,” she urged, feeling less able to be gentle, less able to do what she really needed to do. “Rick, need your help.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he husked, lifting his head from her throat. His eyes were heavy-lidded, drugged with her, but instead of the haze clearing, it only wrapped its insidious fingers around her as well.</p><p>She groaned and fell against his mouth, pressing her chest to his bare skin, urging him down. He went, bringing them both to the mattress with her over him, rubbing her torso against his. She had to work her own shirt off, throwing it aside, lifting up only long enough to pop the front clasp of her black and tan and shrug out of it.</p><p>His eyes fell to her breasts and so did his hands, but she couldn’t stay away from him. She pressed bare skin to skin, groaned when the chafed points of her nipples struck the ridges of his ribs. His arms went around her instead, crushing her against him, and she kissed him, sucking hard on his tongue as she worked her hips.</p><p>His fingers tucked under the waistband of her pants, teasing the crack of her ass and then back up her spine. She moaned and fumbled for his pants, arching her hips to find his button, the franticness coming to the forefront again.</p><p>He groaned when her knuckles grazed his cock, and she paused, his sound bringing her back to herself. </p><p>Had to slow this down, had to seduce him back the way he’d seduced her, they way he had made her feel fucked beyond her capacity for fear or care or worry. She wanted to give something of that back, had to, just to find a way to repair the damage done today.</p><p>His fist gripped the back of her jeans and she lifted up, pushing up from his chest, breaking them apart.</p><p>He was intense. His whole focus on her.</p><p>She circled his nipples and he barked a curse, hips bucking. She rode him, grinning, pleased with herself, with him, and touched a finger to his lips.</p><p>“Hush, sweetheart. Don’t wake the boys.”</p><p>He groaned and closed his eyes, and she slipped off his lap, squeezing his knees as she stood up. He sighed and opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling as she left him, no command on his lips, not even a thought of instructing her; he had been that damaged.</p><p>“Rick,” she murmured, sliding her hand down the front of her jeans. “Watch me, honey.”</p><p>His eyes jerked down, tripping over her, his mouth falling open even as he propped himself up on his elbows. “Fuck,” he rasped.</p><p>She touched herself and groaned, letting her lashes flutter in response to the way he looked at her. He was desperate to touch, to take; she could see it on his face, but he wasn’t.</p><p>She rubbed between her legs, the cramped space in her jeans, and used her other hand to pop open the button. “You watching?”</p><p>“Yes,” he groaned.</p><p>She tilted her hips, a slow slide - side to side, half closing her eyes as she moved. Humming. Pushing her jeans down and turning to the side to show him the round cheek of her ass and hide the full reveal.</p><p>“Kate,” he begged.</p><p>She bent over to push her jeans down, her panties the silk from the bathroom that he had put back on her. She heard his ragged breathing as she stepped out of her jeans, and when she had straightened up, he had as well, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his gaze intent on her.</p><p>She tucked her fingers under the scraps of silk, hummed his name in her throat as she teased her panties down. Remembering his mouth, letting him know that she remembered.</p><p>“You…” He didn’t finish it, just gazed hungrily as she lifted a foot, her panties hanging from her toe.</p><p>She dropped her foot, pressing hard into his sternum with the silk until he flopped back to the mattress. “You keep these safe for me?”</p><p>“Of course,” he growled. His fingers closed over the silk at his chest and made a fist.</p><p>She put her foot to the mattress between his legs and stood up on the bed, tall over him, letting him see - everything. She widened her stance at his waist and tilted her own hips to give him the best view, sinking down slowly to settle over his chest.</p><p>Castle groaned. She felt the rough edge of his jeans at her ass, and she knew he had to be impossibly hard - he’d been hard for her that first day, in the hospital, when all she’d done was shuck her shirt and nurse the boys. Of course he was hard for her, had been, since the moment she had opened her mouth and told him to take her to bed.</p><p>But this slow torture was so lovely, so empowering, so healing. She could see him coming back to her. He’d always be hard for her, but she wanted - she wanted him hard in his heart. For her alone.</p><p>It mattered to her.</p><p>“Kate,” he whispered. “You’re naked.”</p><p>She grinned and leaned in over his chest, widening her thighs to rub her arousal against his sternum. He groaned and clutched hard at her waist, his breathing so raspy that she wasn’t sure he was actually getting any oxygen.</p><p>“I am,” she agreed. “And so should you be. Don’t you think?”</p><p>He nodded, his eyes so serious. So serious on her.</p><p>“Do you want me to fix that, honey?”</p><p>He nodded again, staring up at her.</p><p>“Okay, baby, you just lie here, let me do all the work. I know how to take care of you.”</p><p>The moment before she moved to slide off his chest, his fingers caressed her thighs as if he was grateful. She leaned in and placed a wet kiss to his chest - and she tasted herself on his skin.</p><p>Damn, that was seriously erotic. </p><p>She needed his pants off now.</p><p>——-</p><p>She swallowed him down, taking his whole cock into her mouth, unable to help herself. She felt his hips rise up against her hands where she held him down, his knees splaying wider. She choked on him, gagged on the width and length of his cock, swallowing hard to keep him there.</p><p>She sucked on him, filled with the bitter taste that rose to the head, rolling her tongue around his shaft as best she could. She inhaled through her nose, buried deep in his pubic hair, the heat of his thighs against her ears. She had to work her throat to push down on him, suckling him like he suckled her, drawing his flavor out just as he did her milk.</p><p>She could hear him, something, muffled but-</p><p>Suddenly his hands gripped her head, tangled hard in her hair and pressed his thighs against her ears. She groaned and he bucked, his belly tightening under her palms as his come jismed down her throat, thick and heavy ropes that she had to swallow fast, choking.</p><p>He pumped his hips into her face, fucking her mouth as she sucked and drank him down, craving the taste and fullness, craving that sense of control. How she had him. Pumping and rocking his hips, thrusting into her until his whole body shuddered and dropped back to the mattress, slumped and slack.</p><p>Kate dragged her hands down his inside thighs, cradled the base of his cock as she slipped him from her mouth. She had to lick the last string of his come, sucking the head of him as he groaned. His hands fumbled at her head, in her hair as she pulled back from him.</p><p>When she lifted up, her hands on his knees to push off, she saw he had her panties in his mouth, muffling his noises.</p><p>Kate laughed, surprised, aroused, and climbed up his thighs and into his lap, rubbing at his chest as she swallowed the thickness still closing up her throat. She leaned down against him and hovered over his closed eyes until he opened them.</p><p>“Good idea, baby.” She reached in and tugged at the edge of her panties, he loosened his mouth and she slid the silk over his chin and down his throat. “Aren’t you so smart.”</p><p>He blinked, a croak coming out of his throat, deep.</p><p>She opened her mouth and kissed him, let her tongue lick around his lips, dart inside only to tease back out again. “How do you taste?” she murmured. “Do you like tasting yourself on me? Like this morning in the bathroom. Eating yourself out of my cunt.”</p><p>“Fuck,” he groaned.</p><p>“I think you like it,” she murmured, lifting up only long enough to look at his face as he whined for her. “You like seeing what you’ve done, the impression you’ve made, the disturbance you’ve left behind you. But does it turn you on? The taste of yourself inside me. My mouth, my cunt.”</p><p>He gave a terrible growl and gripped the back of her neck, eyes sparking, nostrils flaring. “Yes.”</p><p>He was back. She had gotten him back.</p><p>“Shall we see how much?” she said, rubbing herself against him now, widening her thighs so she could feel the smooth glide of his abs between her legs. “How fast? Are you ready to fuck me yet, Castle.”</p><p>He yanked her down to meet his mouth, his tongue insinuating itself inside her, forceful things, intimate things, intimating things. She hummed in satisfaction, rocking her hips back and bumping over his pelvic bone until-</p><p>“Oh, fuck, baby, you are ready.”</p><p>“Always ready for you.”</p><p>“Fuck me hard,” she husked, attacking his mouth again, sucking on his tongue. </p><p>Castle wrapped an arm around her and rolled her over, his body massive over hers, his fingers already slicking between her legs. “You’re soaking wet, Kate. That fucking turned you on too, didn’t it?”</p><p>“Of course-“</p><p>He sucked hard on her bottom lip and bit down, tugging only hard enough to make her hips arch. His fingers rubbed fiercely at her clit and she felt her inside thighs trembling with the twitch of impending bliss, knowing it was coming but unable quite yet to reach it. She needed him, needed him buried inside her and fucking her.</p><p>But he lifted up, eyes glittering. Fingers going still. “You cream your panties when you suck my cock?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she panted.</p><p>“How did it feel to touch yourself while I watched you?”</p><p>She stared up at him, drugged with it. “I like your eyes on me.”</p><p>“Touch yourself now,” he demanded, shifting to one side so that she lost all that heavy, wonderful contact. “Touch yourself so I can watch.”</p><p>“I can’t come like this,” she whined, but she covered her sex with her hand, stroked a forceful finger.</p><p>“Yes, you can,” he said, leaning in to kiss her breast. “Just need a little help.” His tongue darted out and wet her nipple, making her whimper. “Quiet, love. Gotta be quiet or this is all over.”</p><p>“I can be quiet,” she promised, rubbing at herself, watching him watch her hand. “I can be-“</p><p>His hand came over hers. “No, you can’t. But we’ll make this quick and dirty, and then I’ll fuck you hard, just like you want.”</p><p>“Please,” she whined, pushing her hips up into their joined hands.</p><p>He kissed her breast again and sucked hard at the round globe where it met her rib, his teeth worrying the spot. “Let me feel you fingers moving under my hand while you try to get yourself off, Kate.”</p><p>She groaned and made slower work of it, her hand weighted down by his. She tried to find her clit but it was slippery, hiding, and she struck it only once out of every five, frustratingly little. His mouth opened along her breast and swallowed her nipple and she arched, gasping with the sudden terrible intensity. Her fingers stuttered, but his took up her rhythm, pushing her own into her folds, out again, sawing at her sex while he lapped and sucked at her nipple.</p><p>He was doing to her what she’d done to him, giving him head in such an obscene, all-out kind of way. He stroked and rubbed at her between her legs and he filled his mouth with her breast, her nipple engorged but not letting down, his teeth not nursing her, only playing.</p><p>She groaned and pushed her hips up into their hands, a violent frenzy starting to whirl in her chest. Spin and spin. Needy and ravenous.</p><p>She came apart on a soundless gasp, her body arched as if broken, her nipple burning and aching, her whole being shoved into orgasm.</p><p>——-</p><p>She was too loud. Too loud, but so damn hot, and needy, and she clutched at him and begged for him, and he crawled up her body and moved her hand with his to circle his cock.<br/>She came back to herself at that, and her eyes flashed wide on his the moment his head penetrated her. And then she was digging her heels into the mattress and opening her thighs to him and he sank down into her flesh like home.<br/>“Oh, God,” he trembled, bowing over her.<br/>“So good,” she said, her voice raw. Like she’d been screaming.<br/>He thrust and she grunted, tightening her arms around him. He held steady there, biting his tongue against it, but she canted her hips and surged up, and already their rhythm had started, the insistent push and pull, the forever of having her.<br/>“Harder,” she whispered. Her fingers gripped his ear and angled his mouth to hers. He drank her down, thrusting his hips while she groaned and rolled under him. She was loose limbed, wide-hipped, but she was tensile strength around him, her body pulling at his cock.</p><p>“Harder,” she whined.</p><p>He thrust, rattling the bedframe, and she keened his name, her mouth opening. Their hips clashed and she groaned, stiffened - her eyes caught his, held, intensely furiously shocked - and then she climaxed. He felt seized, her body gripping his so tightly that he couldn’t keep his rhythm, could only rut deeper and harder inside her through the worst of it.</p><p>She whimpered and unstrung her legs from him, falling limp to the mattress. Boneless, her body still shivering with contractions, her body working lazily as if to expel him. He lifted his hips in case she needed-</p><p>“Don’t you dare leave this undone,” she said, an arm coming around his neck. “When I’m too fucked to hold you here. Don’t you dare leave me.”</p><p>“I’m not. Not letting go, Kate.” He promised himself in kisses down her cheek and throat, licked at the mark he’d made this morning. “Never letting you go.”</p><p>“Better not,” she whispered. “Need you to move.”</p><p>He rocked slowly; her breath stuttered. He withdrew a fraction and thrust in again, sinking deeper. She whimpered his name and curled her fingers at his ear. “Harder. Harder so you come.”</p><p>“Let me do what I can to make it easier,” he whispered. “You’ve already had yours; you let me worry about this part.”</p><p>“I know you want to,” she husked. Her nose nudged his away and she found his mouth, a long kiss that made him lose himself. “I know you want to.”</p><p>“I want you. I have you.” He thrust and she cried out softly, rising up into him, still so in to it, despite how thoroughly her orgasm had gone through her. Could she possibly sustain another? He didn’t dare try, not when she-</p><p>She groaned and clung to him, mouth open at his ear, breathing hard.  “I know you want to make love to me. So do it, Rick. Make love to me. Make love to me.”</p><p>He gasped and sank deeper, hips thrusting, feeling her writhe back, surging into him, urging him on. Make love to her.  Make love to her.</p><p>He gripped the back of her neck, damp with sweat, and drove himself deeper. Her body met his, the slap of flesh, the groan of her breath, the grunt of his. She scraped her teeth on his neck and kneaded his ass with a hand, urging him on.</p><p>“Always,” he panted, kissing her again. “Always make love to you. Always. Always.”</p><p>She cried out and came in a wave, her fluttering muscles touching off something electric in him so that his own orgasm burst like fireworks, punching bright lights behind his eyes, fire in his guts, and he fell into her. Into her. Love with her.</p><p>-----</p><p>He was stroking her like a cat. Petting her. She didn’t mind. She was sleepy and sated and tingling in good places, and he put his fingers there and rubbed a little, dragged her wetness over the backs of her thighs or up over her ass, playing, petting. Felt good.</p><p>She laid on her side, half leaning into him, and he was on his side looking at her, watching her, and she didn’t mind being watched by him. Mostly because she knew he was cataloging all the ways this or that trick had worked for her, what this move did to her body, how she reacted. She was all for that.</p><p>(She knew it was more than that. She wasn’t stupid. She also didn’t think he was either. And it scared her, when she was more lucid and less fucked, it scared her how much of himself he put in her hands, but that was part of this too, and she knew that, she felt that brimming up between them when their bodies met, how could she not, oh God, she was going to hurt him-)</p><p>“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he murmured. A kiss to her nose that dropped to her lips. “Not freaking out.”</p><p>“I’m not freaking out,” she mumbled.</p><p>His arm tightened briefly around her and then let her go entirely. She opened her eyes on a flash of disconcerting no but he manhandling her back to the mattress, turning her-</p><p>“Like this, baby. I want to feel you.”</p><p>She turned in his arms, making it easier on him, rubbed her ass back against his cock. He was semi-erect, that natural state of being for him it seemed, half-hard, ready to go at a moment’s notice. She wondered what it would be like, fucked in the ass, and she couldn’t quite get there, figure it out, how it worked or how it - felt. </p><p>She loved him heavy on top of her, on her back, and that time he’d rubbed himself between her cheeks and thrust-</p><p>Mm, good. That had been good. She could think penetration would be good too. She’d have to - work that out one day. She didn’t like to ask like she had no idea, but she had no idea, and if she asked while he was whining for her, then it could be like it was his idea.</p><p>Castle hummed something into her hair and buried his face down against her neck. “I can feel you thinking. Hush.”</p><p>She laughed and caressed his forearm with her fingertips, brought him in closer. “Just thinking logistics.”</p><p>“We’ll have to leave as soon as Col gets back with a meeting.”</p><p>She huffed, grinning against his knuckles. “No, baby, I didn’t mean life logistics. I meant sex.”</p><p>He growled and nipped her shoulder. “You’re always thinking about sex. I love that you’re always thinking about sex, but hell.”</p><p>Kate squirmed in delight, pushing back against him. Maybe he would fuck her again. Maybe he would just want her so badly he couldn’t stop, grip her thigh with one hand and just plow right inside her until she screamed.</p><p>“Gotta sleep,” he growled, but his hand flattened out against her sternum and stroked. “Sleep while we can.”</p><p>“Fuck while we can,” she countered.</p><p>“Kate.” Castle drew in a ragged breath and his forehead came to her shoulder. “I’ll - wake you.”</p><p>She warmed, bloomed inside. “Okay. Soon.”</p><p>“Soon,” he promised, and softly kissed the back of her arm, licked her armpit in a somehow lewd intimation, his tongue stroking between her arm and ribs. She shivered and laced her fingers through the backs of his, brought him harder and tighter over her, around her, and he snuggled in close.</p><p>She knew maybe something was wrong with her. Or off. Not wrong exactly, to want to fuck him all the time. But she recognized that her sex pulsed with the raw feeling of having had him, that her breasts ached when she nursed - she wasn’t willfully blind, she had spent three years knowing exactly what she could do and how to push for more - but she still wanted him more.</p><p>Maybe it was the elixir. And if so, what happened when it was through?</p><p>Castle wriggled behind her and managed to slid his thigh between her knees. She relaxed, dropping a hand to his knee to stroke his hard patella. </p><p>When it was through, it was through. She didn’t see how wanting him would change.</p><p>-----</p><p>He had intended to give her at least six hours of sleep before waking her in the morning for something slow and stunning. But after only an hour, she was whimpering in dreams. When her body went rigid and sweat broke out at the back of her knees, he went ahead and woke her.</p><p>Fingers between her legs, mouth at her ear, calling her name as he stroked her, distracting her from everything else, all the rest of it, calling her out of the darkness.</p><p>She woke with a jerk, gasped when she realized where he was. “Ca-astle.” Her hips jumped against his hand. “Rick.”</p><p>“Hello, love.” He kissed her neck and nudged her back, nuzzled down to her breasts. He took his time, ambling between her nipples, coming back up to her mouth, pretending it was lazy until she was as drugged and soft as he’d intended.</p><p>She was wordless, but not without sound, her noises encouraging him on, her body loose under him. He slicked his fingers in her sex, rubbing through her folds and avoiding her clit for as long as he could. </p><p>She shuddered and came up against him, so he shifted his body between her legs and settled in. One of her arms came up to hook around his shoulders, her breathing fast at his ear, and he guided his cock inside her.</p><p>She whimpered, arching, and he realized she wasn’t as wet as he’d thought, not as ready for him. But she was rocking her hips to draw him deeper, those lazy and loose bumps against him, trying.</p><p>Even half-asleep and coming out of a bad dream, she was ready in her heart for him, if not in her body.</p><p>He cupped her face and kissed her softly, going slow, distracting her from the insistence of his cock. He stroked her sides and her neck, skimmed her breasts, tongued her mouth. She mewled and gripped his back, blinking fast as he made love to her.</p><p>He kissed her neck and rocked his hips; she shivered and dropped her thighs open, shifting wider for him. Her arousal seeped around his cock and worked deeper inside her, slicking her walls until he could thrust.</p><p>She gasped and clutched at him, contracting inside, and he knew she was already close. It was just that immediate for her, that all or nothing.</p><p>He began to thrust, his rhythm not faltering, her body rising to meet him. It was slow and hard, he was so damn hard - had been since she’d said wake me - and she kept staring up at him, so trusting, so promising.</p><p>He kissed her, gripping her hip to drive into her sex, and she moaned and wrapped herself around him now, her hips swiveling.</p><p>“Oh, God,” he groaned into her mouth.</p><p>She did it again, that round, harsh gyration blowing up his control. He went harder at her, unable to help himself, reached in to thumb her clit. She squeaked and burst into climax, laughing in stuttering breaths, gripping him so tightly that his own orgasm washed through him, tunneling him out.</p><p>Castle groaned and collapsed into her, but he had enough sense left to roll to his back, dragging her with him. She was sprawled over his chest even as sticky and wet as they were, and she wriggled in against him like a kitten.</p><p>He dragged the sheet up over her shoulders again.</p><p>“You kept your promise,” she sighed, and curled in right against his heart.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle drifted in and out of something like sleep, a strange sub-existence where her body on top of his was really the only thing he felt. He combed through her hair, trying not to wake her, and though she never even twitched, he could only hope that she didn’t dream.</p><p>Skin to skin, their connection was usually intense. But the moment she fell asleep, it was a haze of heaviness, not dampened exactly, but brought too low to follow. Like her subconscious mind was impossible for him to touch.</p><p>He stroked the hair off her face and neck, wrapping it around his fist and letting it fall again, washing over her shoulder and his chest. He loved the feel of her, found himself intensely caught up in the feel of her, and the soft tension of her body slung over him. One of her thighs was between his, high enough to create an interesting pressure, but he stayed only mildly aroused, better able to control it now.</p><p>It was difficult to have a raging erection for a woman when she was draped over him like a child, snuggled in. Not impossible, no, not for him, for them, but watching her get the sleep she absolutely needed - yeah, it gave him some measure of control again. If she were awake, and hitting all of his buttons like she’d discovered how to do, then he’d be a goner.</p><p>As it was, his own need to rest - not sleep but at least slow down - that fell over him somewhere in the deepest part of the night. He dozed and woke when one of the boys shifted on the pallet, drifted off only to come back when Kate’s arm fell from the place where she’d tucked it under her body. </p><p>He carefully caught her wrist and pressed her against his side to keep in her warmth, stroked back along her forearm to her elbow. She didn’t move; she was deeply asleep.</p><p>Castle spent the next few hours moderately wakeful, enjoying the rise and fall of her body in breathing, the little egg of heat trapped between them. He realized at some point he had curved his hand around her ass and left it there, and the sensation of that perfect handful began to awaken him, pricking his awareness, calling him to worship.</p><p>He held off. He forced himself to stay still even as the sun rose and the sky lightened and pearled, as the yellow beams crept in and lay over the floor. He did nothing at all until the alarm on his watch beeped once from the bedside table.</p><p>Kate flinched at the sound and clutched him, and he turned them quickly in bed to cover her. “Alarm,” he murmured at her ear. “Good morning, love.”</p><p>She hummed and stretched under his body, lengthening everything, a beautiful long expanse of leg and torso. And then she opened her eyes and dropped her arms loosely around his shoulders.</p><p>“Morning,” she murmured, that shy and quiet smile, her eyes untroubled. “I feel good.”</p><p>He grinned and devoured her mouth in a kiss, heedless of morning breath and all the rest. She laughed into it, the sound vibrating against him, and suddenly one of her hands was between their bodies and cupping his balls.</p><p>“Fuck,” he grunted.</p><p>“Real fast,” she murmured, smiling against the corner of his mouth. “Or real slow, you pick.”</p><p>“Slow,” he husked, capturing her wrist and drawing her away. “And not that.”</p><p>“What then?” she hummed, still in the game with him, caressing her fingers up his side and circling his shoulder. Her kiss at his throat made him shiver. “Slow and...?”</p><p>“I want my mouth on you. I want you for breakfast.”</p><p>It was her turn to shiver, and her hand pressed on his shoulder in all the acceptance he needed. Castle dragged his body down her own, rough with his stubble against her belly, widened her thighs before she could do it herself. He kissed one and then the other, and her ankles locked low on his back, urging.</p><p>He rocked into the mattress, but he couldn’t do that here. In a guest bedroom. But at home. Oh, yes. Very good solution. He could be gentle with his mouth, he could keep from hurting her if he humped the mattress and got his own satisfaction there. She’d never think twice about it.</p><p>Her fingers curled at his ear when he touched his tongue to her sex. Her sounds were high, breathy, new - he went slowly, as he’d promised, and teased more than gave. Her whole body rocked into the sensations, and he lightly suckled at her folds, exploring and caressing his lips and tongue.</p><p>She was damp with sweat and trembling. Her hands cupped his head but didn’t seem to have the strength necessary to force anything. Her thighs jumped and quivered with every touch of his tongue, every liquid kiss.</p><p>He didn’t set up a rhythm, didn’t give her anything to build, and when her orgasm came, it seemed to roll right over her, contracting her whole body first and then hitting her in waves as she groaned and arched into his face.</p><p>He licked her through it, loving the heady wash of arousal, the tension and release in her stomach and thighs, the trembling and damp fingers at his ears. And then he crawled back up her body and lay down beside her, giving her space to cool off, and kissed her slowly while she panted still.</p><p>Her moan was lazy and replete, the sound of intense satiation, overwhelmed. </p><p>This was how to do it; this was how he could be good for her.</p><p>He cradled her jaw, running his thumb over her throat. “I’m going to shower and then come back for the boys. You come when you can.”</p><p>She thumped the back of her hand to his shoulder, huffing at him, but her eyes were dizzy and stunned still. “You’re very good,” she husked.</p><p>“All for you,” he hummed, grateful she had yet to figure out he hadn’t come. He kissed her again and got out of bed, grabbed boxers and hiked them on, heading out before she could say anything.</p><p>He’d have to jack off in the shower just to relieve the ache that had come on just watching her fall apart for him. But it was worth it. In their own bed, next time? He’d fucking let himself go, no problem.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate hummed and rolled to her stomach, but the damp sheets were cool and not nearly as erotic as they were when Castle was with her. Just - damp. </p><p>She pushed off the mattress, laughing at herself and the way her arms shook, her thighs still twitching. She was deeply lazy - a strange sensation, to have her energy levels be so brimming full but her body sapped like chocolate in the sun. What he did to her.</p><p>Kate found his t-shirt on the floor and slid it on over her head, checked on the boys. James had rolled off to one side, but Wyatt had chased him, his forehead against James’s back. Cute. </p><p>She picked up the bunny from the floor and tucked it in next to Wyatt, brushed his hair back. She didn’t touch James, afraid to wake him, and she definitely didn’t want them awake, not when she had a mission this morning.</p><p>She moved for the door, closing it behind her, listening in the hall. She heard the shower first, and rustling in the Eastmans bedroom, though she thought she also detected breakfast smells coming from downstairs. She moved cautiously for the bathroom, on her toes to keep from squeaking the middle board by the stairs, crept past Carrie and Mark’s room to get to the hall bath.</p><p>She opened the door and steam rolled out, enveloping her. She went in quickly to keep the warmth from escaping, shucking the t-shirt and dropping it on the edge of the sink. Castle’s boxers were pooled on the bath mat, and she stepped over them to push aside the shower curtain.</p><p>He was leaning against one wall, cock in his hand, his other braced on the tile and cushioning his forehead.</p><p>“Good morning, love,” she murmured.</p><p>Castle grunted and half-turned, and his eyes flared wide and storm-cloud in the steam. She stepped in and came for him, ducking the spray, scraping her hair out of her eyes before she caught his hips.</p><p>“My turn,” she murmured. </p><p>“You want breakfast?” he smirked, lips dancing.</p><p>She grinned back. Hadn’t exactly been her plan, but wouldn’t that be a fun tradition to start? Oral every morning for breakfast. “Better than pancakes,” she murmured, kissing his chin.</p><p>He grunted her name, and she closed her hand around his at his cock. Impressive. She was still wet, of course, and all it would take-</p><p>“I want your hand on me, not your mouth,” he husked. His teeth clipped her jaw. “Please? Standing like this so I can reach you.”</p><p>“I could take you inside-”</p><p>“No, no,” he rumbled, “like this. Your hot, strong little hand. I love how you - like this morning, how you touched me.”</p><p>“Oh, like this,” she breathed, flipping her wrists to catch his balls. </p><p>He sucked in a breath and she felt the way he swayed into her. His balls were strangely cool despite the heat of the shower, and she felt rivulets run down her arm to his balls - must be good, because he was panting her name and clutching her hips, leaning hard into her.</p><p>“Should we just trade back and forth - new ways to masturbate each other?”</p><p>“Fuck,” he breathed, nose nudging down against her cheek. “Fuck, this is intense.”</p><p>“Yeah?” Ridiculous pride filled her, the sense of being right for him. Somehow, some way, right for him. She rolled his balls in her fingers and stroked under his shaft, made his knees dip so he had to hang on to her.</p><p>“Kate,” he grunted. “Kate, I-” He bit back whatever else wanted out of him, pressing his cheek hard against hers, so hard she felt their bones grind together, but she was teasing him pretty hard core now, both hands, skimming and circling and rubbing his cock, his balls, the soft skin between his groin and his ass.</p><p>Castle fell, crashing into her so that she stumbled back, her shoulders hitting the wall under the spray, his whole body crushing hers. Kate worked enough room to keep her hands busy, stroking his cock now while she rolled his balls, and he thrust into the movement, his mouth open at her temple.</p><p>“Come on, love,” she whispered. The water pounded on his back, the steam built between them. She felt sapped and ridiculous and strong all at the same time; she had his cock and his balls in her hands, literally his most vulnerable, most amazing-</p><p>“Kate, please,” he whined, his thrust growing sloppy, lazy, unhelpful.</p><p>“I’ve got you,” she hummed. “I got you, sweetheart. I know you need me.”</p><p>“Kate.”</p><p>She twisted her hand roughly and his hips jumped, his groan echoed against the tile. She worked him harder now, not teasing any more, letting her hand chafe his shaft. “I can give you exactly what you need, love. I got you, I got you. Always.”</p><p>He barked her name and caught the back of her neck, his eyes suddenly boring straight into hers with all that desperate, ferocious need, and then he came explosively between them, messy and hot and endless.</p><p>-----</p><p>There was a lot of stupid giggling as she washed him off, on her part anyway - his laughter usually came after hers, amused by her she thought, amused and maybe a little, um, delighted? He kinda looked delighted by her.</p><p>It left her chest tight, but it was hard to concentrated on failure when he kept touching her, little kisses and strokes of his fingers, ‘washing’ her off, helping her rinse out the shampoo. She kicked him out so she could shave, and he kissed her roughly as he went, grinning.</p><p>She’d made him happy, and that meant something. No matter what stupid things came out of her mouth, she’d made him happy this morning and that was - a success. She had fixed things, whatever damage she’d inflicted making him come here and have the Eastmans judge him. She had at least managed that.</p><p>“Hey,” he called over the shower. “I’m gonna grab the boys. Push them in with you and we can wash them.”</p><p>“Good idea,” she said. “I have to nurse them at some point-”</p><p>“I figured maybe after breakfast? Is that okay?”</p><p>“Is that too long?” she said, ducking around the shower curtain with the razor in her hand. “I mean, if we’re weaning them now, then that’s a good idea, let them fill up with breakfast, with real food-”</p><p>“No,” Castle said, stopping short, staring at her. “No, we can’t - can’t do that. I wasn’t thinking about - you’re right.” He looked a little pale as he scraped a hand through his wet hair. “Okay, let’s switch those. Nurse after your shower, and then we’ll bathe the boys after breakfast instead?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she said, dropping the razor to the little ledge and holding out her hand for him. “Come here. Come here, Rick.”</p><p>He shook himself and came forward, and she snagged his arm and dragged him closer, the shower curtain half between them. She kissed his mouth, going slowly, being careful with him. </p><p>“I should have thought,” he growled.</p><p>“No, it’s okay. It’s okay-”</p><p>“It’s not okay. We have to be so careful of you, so careful. I have to pay attention-”</p><p>“Stop, stop,” she murmured, kissing him again, framing his face in her wet hands. She wasn’t unaware of the way his own language mirrored hers being careful of him. But she realized, maybe, that it was the other way around - that her language probably was mirroring his. </p><p>“Together,” she told him. “We figure this out together. We’ll do our best. It will be okay.” Even if the worst - even then, the boys had their father, and she’d managed to keep the Eastmans on their side, and then Colin - Colin was already acting the reluctant uncle. Her boys had so much more than she’d ever thought possible, and if she knew Castle at all, he wouldn’t let them forget her. It would be okay. “Even if it’s not, everything will work out, Castle. It will be - better than I ever thought it could be.”</p><p>“Don’t look at me like that,” he husked, capturing her wrists as his mouth twisted. “Don’t say that like you’re not going to be here.”</p><p>She stared back at him, tried to inject some confidence in her gaze. “I’ll be - I don’t plan on dying here. Got this far, right?” She tried to smile at him, a little levity.</p><p>He gripped her harder, his eyes mutinous, stubborn. “You say shit that makes me want to - to fucking burn down the whole damn world. You’re not going to die. I won’t let you die.”</p><p>She shrugged a little, the shower building steam around them, constricting her lungs. “I know you won’t. But things happen. I’m not going to pretend this will be easy. Any of it. I just want to have you while I can.”</p><p>“While you can,” he growled, stepping into her, coming up over the edge of the tub and driving her back against the wall. “While you can. While you can, fuck. Always. You said always, you’ve got me. You. I want you. I won’t make it if it’s not you, if I can’t have you-”</p><p>“Okay,” she hushed, wrapping her arms around his neck, feeling him between her legs, her heart stuttering. “Okay, okay. You’ve got me, Castle. You have me.”</p><p>“Don’t make me do this without you-”</p><p>“I’m here,” she croaked, burying her face against his shoulder, not sure why her whole body trembled, why she felt like closing up, curling in the corner of the shower. </p><p>“Don’t make me,” he whispered, gripping her tighter.</p><p>“I - can’t make you promises,” she cried out. “I can’t - can’t promise when I don’t know, I don’t know, Castle. I can’t say the things you want me to say-”</p><p>“No,” he growled, taking a rough kiss from her mouth and crushing her against the wall. She rode the edge of panic and his tongue, clutching his back to hold on. “Don’t say anything. Stop saying things. You don’t have to say a word. Just be here. Be with me.”</p><p>His fingers pressed into her and she cried out, arching into his touch. He pushed up into her sex, rubbed at her inside walls as her body shook. His mouth devoured her breasts, pulling milk from her, every sensation intense and overwhelming, catching her up in a whirlwind.</p><p>When she came, she sobbed through it, utterly broken, trembling - and then he possessed her.</p><p>Kate mewled, melting around the invasion of his cock. He thrust once, twice, and erupted inside her, a hoarse cry of her name against her mouth, their bodies fused.</p><p>-----</p><p>When he came back to himself, she was hanging on to him, arms and legs twined around his body. He snaked his arm at the back of her head, the other low on her waist, and he sat down hard on the rim of the tub, the shower spray hitting her knees.</p><p>You don’t have to love me back, he almost said. He almost put that out there, as weak and pathetic as it sounded, almost thought it would be a good idea to leave that hanging over her head. It was true - she didn’t - but he had to stop talking about, had to stop using it as blackmail, as a way to keep her, you don’t have to love me back, because saying it only burdened her with it.</p><p>It was his burden. (It was his joy, it was such joy to love her, such terrible agonizing joy, and he would hold it close or he would let it go, whatever she needed).</p><p>“You okay?” he said finally, reaching out to shut off the water. She clung to him, shivered when the air hit her. He gripped her tighter and slid off the edge, settled in the bottom of the bath tub with her in his lap, pulling the curtain closed to keep in the warmth. “Kate, honey, you okay?”</p><p>She nodded into him, no words. </p><p>Castle cupped the back of her head, stroked the wet hair out of her face. “Did you wash out all the conditioner?”</p><p>She nodded, arms banding tighter around him. Her knees were up under his armpits, her body huddled into him. He kissed the side of her face.</p><p>“Did I hurt you?”</p><p>She shook her head, a little sound of negative in her grunt.</p><p>“Need a minute?”</p><p>“Can’t you shut up for a second?” she whined.</p><p>Castle laughed and kissed her cheek again, holding her against him as her body cooled. He rubbed her back and untangled her hair, waited for a second like she’d asked.</p><p>“Second’s gone,” he whispered.</p><p>Kate groaned, but there was a laugh in it somewhere. </p><p>He smiled and nuzzled into her cheek, inhaling the sweet lilac of her skin. “Baby, you don’t have to answer. No more questions. Just listen, okay?”</p><p>She laid her cheek on his shoulder, her body heavy over his. </p><p>He took a breath. “From now on, we focus on getting you what you need. Elixir, however much you have to have, and we go back through his notes. I’m thinking Eastman and Carrie should look at them too - Carrie has medical knowledge. I mean, I know she’s a vet-”</p><p>“That’s good,” she rasped. Her voice sounded raw. He’d done that to her. He had meant to stop using her so badly, fucking her so much, so often, letting her get some damn rest. If her voice was raw, then her sex was raw - he had learned that much by now. He had to be good, be better; he had to.</p><p>“It is good,” he said softly. “You had a good idea, coming to them, getting them on our side. Good for the boys too. Wyatt really loves that hedgehog.”</p><p>She laughed, a little sigh drifting from her lips. “Yeah.”</p><p>“Alex will know what to do,” he said. He felt a little desperate.</p><p>She shifted, drawing her arms into her chest, a compact thing against him.</p><p>“And then you and I will go home, work on you, while Eastman and Colin go searching for facilities and researchers, the rest of it.”</p><p>She froze. He knew what that was about, and he kissed the side of her face, hugging her against him. </p><p>“We’ll join them, Kate, as soon as we know what we’re doing with the elixir. Okay? I promise. We’ll ride out. That’s important. It’s just a notch below getting you stable.”</p><p>“Crew,” whispered.</p><p>His turn to freeze, stunned by the word and the promise inherent in it. “Yeah, baby. We’re crew. We are.”</p><p>She turned her head into Castle’s neck. “Ride or die.”</p><p>Castle leaned forward, drawing his knees up until Kate rested against his thighs. She laid her hands on his chest and didn’t avoid his gaze. Solemn. She knew what she was saying.</p><p>He cupped her face and tried not to be overwhelming - or overwhelmed. “I’d really like to avoid the die part, Kate, if you don’t mind.”</p><p>Her lips cracked into a grin and she flushed pink, lifted her hands to circle his wrists. She turned and kissed first one palm and then the other. When she leaned back in to embrace him, he let her hide against his neck again. “I’d like to avoid dying myself. Promise. I - I’m not looking to die, Castle. I really don’t want to die.”</p><p>-----</p><p>She woke James first, kissing his forehead and drawing him up into her arms. He startled and tensed but when he saw her, felt her, he relaxed into her chest with a mumbled, hi, mommy.</p><p>She hummed good morning and put her back to the wall, cradling him like a baby, working her t-shirt up. She hadn’t dressed yet, but Castle already had - and gone downstairs to help Carrie with breakfast. She had been the one to push him out the door, needing a little solitude.</p><p>She had it now, with James nursing in that intent way of his, watching her through half-lidded eyes as he tried not to fall asleep. She held him with one arm and brushed her other hand around his little cheek, his chin, down to his throat and stomach. He grinned around her breast and went back to nursing, and she smiled down at him, ducked her head to kiss the thatch of dark hair.</p><p>“Haven’t we come so far?” she murmured, touching one of the curls at his ear. “You and me.” James grunted. “Okay, I guess Wyatt too. Even though I didn’t know he was there.”</p><p>Her little boy. His eyes dipped and his mouth slackened and then he startled awake, blinking furiously. She grinned and dusted two fingers at his forehead and down to his nose.</p><p>“We made it, huh?” She couldn’t believe it sometimes, still woke up bracing herself. But that day she had finally done it, scraped out her insides just to get Black to her bedside, that had been the beginning of all of this. </p><p>Richard Castle was her knight in shining armor. Tarnished by his own history, his past and his family, but still - he had done this part of things. She had the first part, he had carried it through. </p><p>He’d do it now. “Daddy will take care of you, baby. Wyatt has already figured it out, you know. It takes more than just one. You need people around you who will love you. James. You listening, baby? You need to let people love you. You need to love them back.”</p><p>There was a sound by the door and she glanced up, found Castle standing just inside, his back to the frame, his eyes on her. She hadn’t heard him come in.</p><p>“Hey,” she said softly, concerned by the look on his face. “Is Colin back?”</p><p>He roused and came toward her, sank down to the bed in front of her. She didn’t know what that look was about, but he reached out and touched James’s cheek, woke the boy again. “Yeah, yeah, Colin just pulled up. I made sausage and bacon and Carrie made eggs. If you’re hungry.”</p><p>“Sounds good,” she said, smiling softly at him. “James is almost done. Then Wyatt.”</p><p>“I’ll wake him now, change his diaper and hand him over?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she said, turning her wrist and curling her fingers around his forearm. “Give you James in return.”</p><p>He nodded and laid his other hand on top of hers, squeezed her fingers. She watched him turn to Wyatt and wake the boy, dragging him into his arms with that bunny, shushing him in a low voice, telling him a story, no doubt.</p><p>Castle laid Wyatt on the bed and changed his diaper, making silly faces and causing Wyatt to laugh, that half-delirious sound of a boy not quite awake yet. She smiled and glanced down at James, saw he’d finished. She switched him to the other side but he squirmed in her arms and didn’t take the breast, so she put him against her shoulder and cuddled him while she waited on Castle.</p><p>James curled at her neck and twirled his fingers in her hair, murmuring her name. </p><p>“I’m here, baby,” she whispered against his cheek. “I’m here. You get to have me. Promise.”</p><p>And then it hit her what she was promising, what she kept promising them, every time, and how it easy it was, how she believed what she told them. </p><p>She believed. Help her unbelief.</p><p>“Hey, here’s Wyatt. He’s a little wiggle worm, aren’t you, my man?” Castle grinned at her as he set Wyatt on his feet, nudging him her way. She eased James away from her chest and handed him to Castle, realizing even as she did it that she was kind of breaking her promise.</p><p>She was here, but he didn’t get to have her. He had Castle now. And that was good and right, that was as it should be. That was what she had wanted for them, but in her wildest dreams, she’d never thought they’d actually have this.</p><p>They did. They had this.</p><p>“Kate?”</p><p>“Hey,” she said, smiling at Castle. “Thanks for - thank you, Rick. I - never expected you.”</p><p>His face softened, his arms cradling James. “That - means a lot to me. You saying that. Means... so much.”</p><p>She felt the heat in her cheeks and nodded, winced when Wyatt gummed at her shirt. “Oops, okay, okay, baby. Let’s get you fed, huh?”</p><p>Castle laughed softly and reached out a hand, ducked Wyatt’s head. “Man after my own heart.”</p><p>-----</p><p>When the four of them came down, diapers changed, Kate in clean clothes and feeling marginally better about everything, Colin spotted them first.</p><p>“Hurry your asses up,” Colin said from the table. “Meeting is at one in the city. We have to get there long before him and cover our bases.”</p><p>She felt her lips twitch and leaned in, handing off Wyatt before he could refuse. “Then you help, Uncle Col. Make sure he eats enough to last the drive. We don’t want to have to stop.”</p><p>“Damn,” Colin muttered, making a face at Wyatt. The boy giggled and tried to make the face back at him, and Colin’s gruff churlish attitude was already swept away.</p><p>Kate pretended she hadn’t seen him soften and she found her seat at the table, settling down with James between her and Castle. Carrie had sat down on the other side of Wyatt and Colin, with Eastman putting more bowls of food on the table. Not just eggs and sausage and bacon, but hash browns and cheese grits, fruit salad and sliced squash. She’d never seen this much food on one table since... ever.</p><p>“Wow,” she said, glancing up at Carrie. “This is - a lot.”</p><p>“Gotta fill up before you go,” was all she said, the woman glancing up at Mark. Eastman laid his hand on her shoulder and Kate realized they had just appropriated her husband for a dangerous mission right after he’d returned home to her.</p><p>“Are you coming with us?” Kate asked. The whole table stopped, heads swiveling towards her. She reached out and touched James’s knee to keep him still on the chair. “I mean, I thought someone said you were going to help with - um - you don’t have to.”</p><p>“Do you want me there?”</p><p>Kate shot a fast look to Castle, but his face was completely smooth, blank. She huffed at him for giving her no direction whatsoever and turned back to Carrie. “Yes. More hands the better. And when we have to split up for things, at least the boys know you, feel comfortable coming to you.”</p><p>“Hey, now,” Colin muttered. “That was just one time.”</p><p>Now it was Colin’s turn to be stared at, taking the brunt of everyone’s attention, and Kate knew he had done it on purpose. Because he could feel that she hated it, having them look at her like that.</p><p>Colin might not like her, but he didn’t hate her. He might even kinda love her a little. At least he wanted to help her out.</p><p>“I don’t know that it’s safe for you,” Kate said quietly. “But if you want, then-”</p><p>“I’d really love to come with you all,” Carrie answered. “And being a vet, I do have some medical training as well. Castle was asking me to look over the medical records, if you’re okay with that.”</p><p>Kate nodded, trying to straighten her spine at the table, feel less like a sixteen year old asking her parents for the keys to the car. She saw Mark nudging Carrie’s shoulder but Carrie was ignoring him, and Kate realized the two of them had probably talked all night about what they’d do. And she and Carrie were blowing it up.</p><p>But Castle said nothing against it.</p><p>“We’ll take my truck,” Carrie said. “The farm truck. It’s not registered. It was my grandfather’s - he built it himself. It drives just fine. Where do you want us?”</p><p>Kate had been about to say the castle in the woods but she stopped, unwilling to give it up. It felt like it was hers, it was her special tower, her place to hide, and she wanted that place to remain inviolate. Safe.</p><p>And it wasn’t really hers anyway. It was Colin and Castle’s together. She had already brought too much danger inside its walls.</p><p>“Castle?” she asked.</p><p>“You can follow us into the city. I have a few errands Eastman can run for me,” Castle answered finally. He had an arm slung around James’s chair, his hand brushing Kate’s shoulder. He looked at ease, completely fine with her unilateral decision. “That will be a big help to us. Let Col and I focus on Alex.”</p><p>“We can do that,” Eastman gruffed. “So long as these errands of yours are civilian friendly.”</p><p>“For the most part,” Castle said, the corner of his lips twitching up. But Eastman didn’t rise to the bait and Kate wasn’t entirely sure it had been said to sting. In fact, the two men looked far more comfortable with each other now that everything had been said and the air cleared.</p><p>And maybe her warning had worked.</p><p>She sat back in her chair and gave Wyatt, who was looking at her, a little smile and a wriggle of her fingers. He beamed back at her, throwing up both hands and smacking Colin in the chin.</p><p>“All right, kid, all right. Food, I know. Well, since that’s settled,” Colin told the table. “How about we eat? Me and Wy are starving.”</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter 21</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He caught her elbow as they climbed the stairs with the boys, and when she looked back at him, her face was so open, so happy, that it nearly knocked him down a step.</p><p>“What, baby?” she said, mounting the top stair and turning in the hall. “You have a funny look on your face.”</p><p>“No, I just - you said Carrie could read your medical files?”</p><p>“Yeah, it’s a good idea to have another set of eyes, don’t you think? I mean, Alex is - whatever we think of him - he might tell us one thing and Carrie would see something else.”</p><p>Castle nudged her down the hall, shifting James in his arms. “Yeah, you’re right. Good to have a couple different perspectives on this thing. But I meant - I have a data stick I can give Carrie and it will have everything on it. Everything, Kate.”</p><p>She halted mid-stride, opened her mouth, closed it again. She was shaking.</p><p>He put James down on his feet and took Wyatt out of her arms, set the boy next to his brother. He folded her in his embrace in the middle of the hallway, saying nothing at all until she stopped shaking.</p><p>“You tell me what you want to do, Kate. I’ll do whatever you say.”</p><p>Her arms snaked around his waist and her face buried in his neck, but her voice didn’t waver. “Give it to her. All of it. It’s easier if I don’t have to say.”</p><p>Damn, wasn’t that the truth. Kate had a serious issue with telling her story, and while he couldn’t fault her for it, it did make it rather impossible to get any kind of healing or closure. If she couldn’t speak it, she couldn’t get it out of herself. </p><p>“I’ll give her the records,” he said instead. He touched a kiss to the top of her head, squeezing a little tighter, and then he released her. “Come on, the boys need a shower before we road trip to the city.”</p><p>When he turned, James and Wyatt were peering into the Eastmans bedroom, sticking their heads around the corner and nudging each other as if daring one to go inside. </p><p>“Boys,” he called, snapping his fingers. It was instinct; he didn’t think anything of it. But both boys stiffened, and Wyatt cowered behind James, while James turned his head and refused to look at them.</p><p>Kate sighed.</p><p>“Oh, God,” Castle croaked, jolting forward and crashing to his knees in front of the boys. He gathered them up against his chest, ignoring the way James only grew more rigid, pretending it didn’t hurt when Wyatt whimpered. “I know, I know, guys. I scared you. I just didn’t want you wandering around in their room, didn’t mean to scare you.”</p><p>He glanced up and Kate was standing off to one side, alone, rather sad-looking, almost like she felt she couldn’t go to the boys.</p><p>“Kate,” he called. “Please.”</p><p>She spread her hands as if she had no idea, no better than him, and he gripped the boys harder and stood up with them, turning to her. She touched James’s back with a hand, tilted her head against Wyatt’s arm. Both boys whined and leaned into her, but she didn’t take them from him.</p><p>“I thought we were past this,” she mumbled. “I thought it was done.”</p><p>“Past what, honey?”</p><p>She pressed her hand flat to James and laid her head to Castle’s shoulder, her body wedged between the boys’, but still not taking them from him. “This. Just - this.”</p><p>“It’s going to take a while,” he said softly, wishing he had an arm free for her. “It’s been their whole lives, sweetheart. It will just take some time. And you know, they will always need their mommy, no matter how well they rebound.”</p><p>“Do you miss your mom?” she murmured.</p><p>He froze. He’d told her before he hadn’t given his mother another thought, but that wasn’t entirely true. Especially not now, having sons of his own and watching Kate with them. “I miss - the having. I don’t know what it is I’m missing, Kate, but when I see you with Wyatt and James, it makes me wish I’d had it.”</p><p>“Do you think it would have helped you if you - if she had stayed somehow? I mean, if she’d been around.”</p><p>“Do you think she could have stood up against Black?” he said carefully. “I can’t imagine anyone as amazing as you, Kate. As fearless.”</p><p>She huffed, rubbed her forehead against his shoulder. “Hardly.” And then she suddenly stood up straight and grabbed James out of his arms, taking him right against her chest as she headed for the bathroom. “Enough. Enough of this. No more. You guys hear me? We’re not wallowing in it anymore.”</p><p>Well. Okay then.</p><p>-----</p><p>Everyone was in the Jeep, waiting on him, and Carrie and Eastman were already inside the truck, Mark at the wheel.</p><p>“Where you going, Castle?”</p><p>“One sec,” he told his brother, jogging down the dirt lane to the truck. </p><p>Eastman hand cranked the window and put his elbow on the door, saluted Castle with an idle gesture. “Something wrong?”</p><p>“I need to give this to Carrie,” he said, handing up the data stick. He’d been putting it off, thinking somehow Kate might change her mind, and at the same time, trying to come up with what he said about this. “It’s Kate’s medical records.”<br/>Carrie leaned over and took it from him, plucking it right out of his fingers. Castle winced and stared into the sun, dropped his eyes to the horizon of barns and animals, the work that went into this place. Carrie had called a friend who lived a few acres over; the man and his wife were going to take care of the place for them.</p><p>So many damn connections, so many people now entering into his once small world. “I need to warn you-”</p><p>“Carrie’s not gonna do anything with it,” Eastman said abruptly. “Come on, Richard. We’re in this. We’re not selling you out, no matter how much you might deserve it.”</p><p>He gripped the door and shook his head, wrestling back a sudden and potent anger that he knew wasn’t really directed at Eastman. “No. Not what I was going to say.”</p><p>“What did you need to warn me about?” Carrie interrupted, swatting at Eastman. “Go ahead, we’re listening. Mark is shutting up.”</p><p>Castle blew out a breath and from the Jeep, Colin honked the horn. Meeting at one and they had to get on the road.</p><p>He didn’t know how to say this. “Kate was impregnated more than once,” he growled, rubbing the bridge of his nose and avoiding their eyes. “The medical records show a total of five times. He tried it five - shit - five times and most of them didn’t take but the boys and - and the last. When she - uh - God damn it.”</p><p>“Five.”</p><p>He dropped his hand and balled it into a fist, scuffed dirt in the lane with the toe of his black combat boot. He felt unequal to this. He felt unequal to all of it sometimes, his confidence draining right out of him when he thought about how damn much she had endured.</p><p>“I’m sure there’s more I don’t know,” he said finally, clearing his throat. “That’s why we need help. There’s - so much I don’t know about what happened to her, and as you can imagine, she’s not willing to dwell on it. If you - see anything else, notice anything, I’d appreciate a heads up.”</p><p>“Five implanted pregnancies. Oh my God.” Carrie pressed her hand over her mouth, staring at the data stick.</p><p>“Mixed - mixed DNA samples. Probably from my brothers’.” Fuck. It still made his stomach twist. “I thought you should know what we know just to - fuck, I had to be the one to tell her. I had to tell her that’s what the records said. She didn’t even know. She was always given a sedative and they’d do things to her and, God damn it, I want to kill him myself. What she did to him was too good for him. He deserved to die slowly and in much greater pain.”</p><p>Carrie was wordless when her eyes finally met his. He didn’t look at Eastman; he just stepped back and returned the salute, though his wasn’t idle.</p><p>“Richard,” Eastman called, reaching out through his window and grabbing Castle by the arm. “Richard. Fuck. You can’t lay that on us and leave.”</p><p>“It’s all I got.”</p><p>“Damn it.”</p><p>He nodded. “My thoughts exactly. Not much I can do about it standing in your driveway though, can I?”</p><p>Eastman growled and let go of him. “I’m coming with you. When you talk to Alex. You need eyes.”</p><p>Castle rubbed his jaw, but he figured it’d be best to have another set of hands. “Carrie, that leaves you with the boys at my place.”</p><p>“We’ll be fine,” she said, though her voice sounded hollowed out. “Just fine. You guys go. Kate needs - I think she needs to be there. He needs to see her. What he’s helped do to her.”</p><p>Castle rubbed a hand down his face, tried not to think that far ahead. He jogged back to the Jeep and crawled into the back seat behind the boys, laid his forehead on the back of James’s carseat.</p><p>“Castle?” she said from the front. </p><p>“I had to give them something. That - your medical records.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>He lifted his head and gave her the best smile he could muster. She turned around in her seat and faced forward, said nothing.</p><p>-----</p><p>“What the hell is this?” Eastman muttered, moving in a tight circle in the Harlem apartment.</p><p>Kate felt her hackles rise. “This is Castle’s place. You shut up,” she hissed at him, before Castle could get upstairs with their stuff. “He brought me here and this is - this was sanctuary to me.”</p><p>Eastman looked horrified, and for that matter, so did Carrie, but Kate turned away from them, took her boys by each little hand and drew them to the front window. She had to peel black paper up at the corners for them to see. “Want to watch Daddy unload the Jeep?”</p><p>“Eep, Daddy!” Wyatt crowed, mashing his face to the window pane, putting his mouth on it.</p><p>“Don’t lick it, crazy boy,” she hummed, getting on her knees beside them. She brushed her fingers through James’s curls. “Do you see Daddy, James?”</p><p>“See,” he parroted solemnly. But then he pointed out the window down towards the curb. “Hi, Daddy!”</p><p>She laughed, feeling it catch in her chest when she saw Castle herself. He was drawing one of their bags over his shoulder and swinging open the back lift gate of the Jeep. He dragged out two more bags and slung one cross body while he simply wrapped his hand around the straps of the other.</p><p>“See how strong Daddy is,” she murmured. James leaned in against her, put a foot on her thigh as if he was thinking about climbing higher. Wyatt bounced on his toes in front of the window, chanting to himself, noises every time his heels struck the floor.</p><p>They watched as Castle disappeared inside the building and James let out a startled noise.</p><p>“Where did he go?” Kate laughed, turning to catch his bewildered look. “Oh, really? Oh, baby, you’re cute. He’s coming inside to meet us up here. Don’t worry.” </p><p>Colin had driven the truck off to a garage he knew where it would be safe overnight, and soon the four of them - Colin, Castle, Eastman, and Kate - would get back in the Jeep and drive to Central Park for the meeting. She didn’t know where in the world Colin thought he could park, but it was better than not having any wheels at all. Just in case.</p><p>“Daddy here?” James called to her, turning her face towards him with two little hands. She laughed in surprise and kissed him on the mouth. </p><p>“Daddy’s coming up here, yes. Wyatt, baby, don’t climb up into the window. You’ll fall.” She reached out and tugged on the back of his green t-shirt, loving the way the sunlight hit his face and made his eyes glimmer that same green. “Wyatt, come on. You’ve never been this crazy. Is this just for Carrie?”</p><p>“Tare-tare-tare!”</p><p>Kate turned when she heard Carrie laugh, gave the woman an apologetic smile. “I think that’s your name, by the way. So at least he’s cute, right?”</p><p>“He’s adorable.” Carrie sank back on her haunches on the bare floor. “You know - um - there’s no furniture in here. I mean, there’s a chair. And... that’s it.”</p><p>“There’s a mattress in the master,” Kate said quietly. “They’ll nap in there. Castle bought the boys’ bed and we packed it with us and-”</p><p>Oh. They hadn’t specifically said, hadn’t actually told Carrie and Mark that they’d been living somewhere else, not here. No wonder Mark looked furious. </p><p>She glanced at the boys and absently tugged Wyatt away from the window where he was still trying to climb up into the sill. “Um. We haven’t been living here. Just at first, while I was - trying not to freak out, mostly. And not able to really - get out.”</p><p>“Oh, oh, good. That’s good. I thought - no, he wouldn’t do that. He’s a smart man.”</p><p>Kate gave a weak laugh. “I - wouldn’t have really done so hot with much more than this, Carrie. I don’t want you to think I was somehow deprived when we were here. We took everything with us, so it’s - um - it just sounds worse and worse, but if I’d been surrounded by so much, like at the farm, I think I’d have...”</p><p>She realized she’d been about to say kill myself in that cavalier kind of way that wasn’t really that cavalier. She might, actually, have done something drastic had she been surrounded by all the things of real life, normal life, that she’d felt were entirely lost to her, not made for her any longer.</p><p>And while the castle in the woods was special, and beautiful, and rich - it wasn’t real either. It’s very existence seemed surreal, not made for normal life, and so she fit. </p><p>“Did Richard tell you he gave me a copy of your records?”</p><p>She nodded, reaching over to tie Wyatt’s shoe. James was hanging on to her shoulder and came with her, leaning in against her back. </p><p>“Kate, sweetie, the records are incomplete.”</p><p>“Oh?” She glanced up. “Did you tell Castle that?”</p><p>Carrie shook her head. “I was looking at them on the drive down-”</p><p>Castle came burdened into the apartment, Colin right behind him and helping carry some of the load. Which meant Castle had waited downstairs for his brother. Wyatt gave a little welcoming shriek, sidling up against her, but it was James who straightened up from leaning on her back, softly breathed daddy as if he were surprised.</p><p>“Castle,” she called, helping him out a little.</p><p>But Rick was already making his way through the living room, dropping bags and stooping down to scoop up his son. He kissed James on the cheek and hugged him. “You miss me?”</p><p>James gave a shy smile and ducked his head, but he was looking straight at her as if to say, this is what you told me to do. She smiled encouragingly back at him, Wyatt now leaning in against her, all over her, and she swallowed hard to keep down the sense of relief that choked her up.</p><p>Carrie touched her knee. “Kate, sweetheart. Your records.”</p><p>“What about her records?” Castle said, dropping down now to crouch with her. He ducked Wyatt’s head and the boy cackled, but Castle’s attention was on Carrie. “What did you find?”</p><p>“Just that they’re not all there. Your father mentions every single procedure and every change in treatment, but he doesn’t include the results. There are no reports filed, no data sheets, no blood tests findings. So while it’s a good map for what he did, it tells us nothing at all about what those things did to her. Kate, we need the results to know how the elixir affected you - which treatments worked, which didn’t.”</p><p>Castle let out a breath and sank back to his ass on the floor, staring at Carrie. “God damn it. I knew it was-” He shook his head hard and rubbed his hand down his face. “Too easy. He always hid shit all over the place, like a damn puzzle. If one goes down, the rest won’t fall.”</p><p>“But Alex?” Kate said quietly, setting her jaw as she looked at him. “He’ll know where to find the results, right?”</p><p>“I wish he didn’t,” Castle gruffed. “For the sake of his fucking soul, I wish he didn’t. But please let him be the damned asshole we think he is, right? Let him know every last detail, just so we know what to do for you. I’ll be grateful if he is up to his neck in it.”</p><p>Kate turned her head to Wyatt, took a fast breath, smelling his clean clothes and baby shampoo.</p><p>It hadn’t occurred to her that the blacker Alex’s soul, the better it was for her. And it hadn’t once crossed her mind that Castle might think that, might hope his brother a bastard just for her sake.</p><p>She felt him touch her back and she glanced at him. His kiss was rough when it came, hiding her from Carrie, from Mark, from Colin. He rubbed his thumb under her cheek, pressed his forehead to hers, Wyatt hanging on to her, James in Castle’s lap.</p><p>“Gonna be okay,” he promised her. “All of us. Gonna be okay.”</p><p>She nodded, but she just didn’t know.</p><p>“Guys, touching as it is,” Colin said sarcastically, clapping his hands together. “We have a meeting to get to.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle checked his line of sight once more and then scanned the walkway about one hundred feet below. Belvedere Castle was busy with tourists - the late summer sunlight had drawn out the natives as well - but he had a clear view of the green rolling lawn where they were supposed to meet with Alex.</p><p>In about - he checked his watch - one hour.</p><p>Kate touched his arm and he turned his wrist so she could look at the time, and then she frowned and sank back to the parapet. Colin came back from the lower reaches, a head nod before he moved on, patrolling the crowd for anything out of place.</p><p>“You think he’ll really have protection?”</p><p>Castle shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. Better safe than sorry.”</p><p>Kate turned and surveyed Central Park, her shoulders hunched as she pressed her elbows to the stone. He couldn’t help coming up at her back and leaning in against her, wrapping his arms around her waist and tucking his chin to her shoulder. </p><p>“You okay?” he murmured softly.</p><p>She sighed and her head turned into him, a brief nudge of her cheek against his in that way that meant love. And then she wriggled out of his grip. Castle released her, stepping up at her side now instead, his elbows on the stone wall next to hers. </p><p>“Kate. You wanna talk to me?”</p><p>“About what.”</p><p>“About anything,” he offered. “We have an hour.”</p><p>“You’re supposed to be lookout.”</p><p>“I can look while I listen.”</p><p>She huffed at him, glanced his way with another scowl.</p><p>“Supposed to be shrinking each other,” he reminded, knocking his shoulder into hers. “Better for us if we talk about - anything. Better for the boys.”</p><p>“That’s low.”</p><p>He ducked his head, glanced at her again. She was scowling still, but not in a way that said she meant it. Not really. Sort of. Maybe. “It’s true.”</p><p>“A crowded busy tourist attraction is not the place to do this.”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“And right before a meeting that has the potential to be a fucking powder keg-” Kate broke off, jerked her head to him. He didn’t know what that look was for, only that she seemed to reassess - or assess him.</p><p>“Kate?”</p><p>“You’re killing time, fine. What do you want to talk about?”</p><p>He tried to ascertain what that look had been for, what she was getting at, but it was beyond him. And she just might talk to him, after all.</p><p>“The boys,” he said, going for a safe subject. “And - what - what do you want for them? Kindergarten. Little League. Prom. A college sweetheart-”</p><p>“Shit, Castle.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>She slapped his shoulder. “Prom? A college sweetheart - that’s - oh my God. I don’t even-” She shook her head. “James would be a beast in Little League.”</p><p>He grinned, lips quirking as she squirmed. “Wyatt would be - fun to watch.”</p><p>She let out a shaky breath and leaned her head lightly against his shoulder, lifted it again. “I’m not sure I can get there, Castle.”</p><p>His heart clutched.</p><p>“Don’t you think today has enough to worry about? Enough to keep us occupied? I can’t even begin to think about little league or - or even what to do about kindergarten. Oh God, they’re going to be five some day. Soon. They’re going to be old enough to ask questions and to run away and know better. I’m not-”</p><p>“You are.”</p><p>She pressed her hand to her eyes and hunched there, but Castle let her have a moment, knowing that it was a little scary, thinking about what the boys would need from them. </p><p>But she was. She was enough, she was their mother, she was good for them. She was whatever she didn’t think she could be - and she was more.</p><p>He reached down and touched the stone where her elbow rested, stroked her skin until she dropped her hand from her eyes. He offered his hand and she straightened up, studied his palm as if it held her fortune.</p><p>He wriggled his fingers and she laughed a little, a kind of desperate sound, but she took his hand.</p><p>“Wyatt might be better off in an art class,” she murmured. Her head turned and her eyes pierced him. “But how about we try finger-painting first?”</p><p>Relief flooded through him and he grinned back at her. “I don’t know what that is, but I bet it’s great.”</p><p>-----</p><p>“He’s heading for the tunnel,” Castle said into her ear. “Eastman has spotted him.” </p><p>Kate straightened up, watched Castle put his phone back into the pocket of his cargo pants and then take her hand. She squeezed his. “Colin know it’s on?”</p><p>“He’s ahead of us,” he said softly, giving away nothing.</p><p>Of course not. Spies didn’t give away locations. She scanned the crowd ahead of them as they trooped down and out of Belvedere Castle, caught in the flux of people ranging over the well-known spot. She didn’t see Colin at first, and that was probably a good thing, but as she kept looking-</p><p>“Not so obvious, Kate, honey.”</p><p>She flushed and glanced at him, but he was smiling, that self-satisfied smirk. “I think I saw him.”</p><p>“If you did, you’re better than me,” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “He’s very good at this.”</p><p>“You’re both very good at this,” she murmured. It was only his brother, Alex, they were meeting up with, but it was so clandestine. It was so - thrilling. She had those zips of excitement running through her body so that her muscles were primed, her heartbeat steady in her throat, her senses laser-focused.</p><p>She wondered if it was the elixir, or if she was just like this. If she was just built this way, or if the program had cultivated it in her.</p><p>As she walked hand in hand with Castle, ambling away from the Shakespeare Garden and towards the pedestrian tunnel just before the Met, she realized her panties were wet. </p><p>She was pretty sure that wasn’t the elixir. She was pretty sure that was just being here with him, doing this with him. </p><p>She was aroused, and she was in the middle of one of the largest crowds she’d ever seen in the last three years. She was aroused and people were stepping on the back of her shoe or cutting her off as they swerved towards the museum or stopping suddenly on the walkway and calling to a friend far behind. She was aroused and the sheer force of life and normality going on around her was such a wall-</p><p>but she had Castle. She had Castle and the boys were safe at the apartment and she was threading through the unseen cracks of that wall like air, like water, nothing could stop her.</p><p>“I used to come here,” she said suddenly, caught by the ways she was and wasn’t in Central Park. “My dad and I came to the zoo when I was a kid - almost every weekend. And my mom took me for rides on the carousel, and then in the winter - even that last winter, before I was going to go back to Stanford - we went skating at the rink. We did that every New Year’s. I don’t... know what this place is anymore. Without them.”</p><p>Castle’s fingers laced through hers. “It must be different for everyone, don’t you think? I don’t have childhood memories here. Mine are all - like this. Where are the nearest exits, how far down the bike path can we get lost, where is good ground cover, what are the highest sniper points.”</p><p>She blinked and his version of the park was laid over hers once more, like an elevation map laid over an official tourist map. The same and yet so different. “Belvedere is the highest point in the whole park.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“And the tunnel where we’re meeting Alex is famous - or well, you see a ton of artsy photographs with like a busker playing his guitar in the half shell of stone.”</p><p>“Exactly.”</p><p>“Why a place where everyone goes, where we all take pictures?”</p><p>“So he won’t do anything stupid. So we won’t either.”</p><p>“it’s a very public place,” she murmured. </p><p>He jiggled her hand in his. “It’s a very public place, yes. And here we go.” His fingers unthreaded from hers when they were still yards away, though his hand touched briefly on her lower back. “Remember, let Colin and I start us off. We know how to push his buttons. Observe, pay attention, see how he reacts - because you’ll pick up things we won’t, being too close to him. And then-”</p><p>“I don’t think I have much to say,” she told him, trying to be reassuring. Feeling grim instead.</p><p>Castle’s hand twitched and brushed the outside of her thigh. “You don’t have to, but if you - I just want you to know you can. You won’t ruin anything we have going, you won’t knock down our set-up. You have good instincts for this. You’ve - ah - played the Eastmans well.”</p><p>“But I-” Kate chewed on her bottom lip, pushing her sunglasses back on her head as they came into the shadow of the trees and the start of the tunnel. “I meant it.”</p><p>“You did. Not saying you didn’t. But you do it very well.”</p><p>She’d done it to him, too. That’s what he wasn’t saying. She’d manipulated him too, to get what she wanted, to get what she needed, to have him - do things to her, for her. </p><p>It was all she knew; it was all she’d had in that place, trying to push their buttons, a reaction just to see them react. To see him react. To bring Black to her. </p><p>To kill him.</p><p>“So if you think of something we’ve not brought up, Kate, you speak up. Okay?”</p><p>She didn’t think she had anything to say; she didn’t think she could. But. “Okay,” she offered, because it was easier than trying to explain.</p><p>She didn’t want to talk to Alex about what was done to her. It wasn’t - it wasn’t okay that Alex knew. Not like it was with Castle. </p><p>Castle was her high ground. Castle was her safety.</p><p>She didn’t know how it had happened, but it was too late now to worry, to change her mind. </p><p>This was what worked.</p><p>-----</p><p>It didn’t start well. Alex was in dress pants and a necktie, eating a hot dog he’d bought from a cart as if this were any other damn day in the park. It set something off in him, made Castle fucking furious, the crooked tie and the tan and the crinkle of his eyes at the corners that were Castle’s too.</p><p>Furious.</p><p>He approached with Kate at his back, her steps heavier and slower, and that hit him too, how she dreaded this. From the other end of the tunnel, Colin came through, only for Alex to lift a hand and give a half wave, and then turn fast and spot Castle and Beckett.</p><p>“Shit, you weren’t kidding,” Alex muttered.</p><p>His big brother who was a few inches taller than Castle and had the breadth to his chest that Colin hadn’t inherited. </p><p>“Alex,” Castle said quickly. He nodded to Colin and his brother met him on the other side, the two of them keeping Alex between them. </p><p>“You brought her too,” Alex said, tilting his head to look past him to Kate. </p><p>Castle fought the urge to step before him, interrupt his line of sight, but that would give too much away. And he couldn’t. Absolutely couldn’t.</p><p>“Are you drinking the pedialyte? Richard, is she drinking the pedialyte?”</p><p>“I am,” Kate said. He was astonished but he didn’t let that show on his face either. She came forward and blew everything by clutching the back of his shirt. “What else?”</p><p>Alex flushed, his eyes shifting between Castle and Beckett, but Castle grit his teeth and determined not to let it bother him.</p><p>“Alex,” Colin prompted. “She asked you a question. What else?”</p><p>Alex scraped a hand down his face and glanced down the tunnel and then back to Castle and Colin, as if reassessing things. He wasn’t stupid, and he was thinking now. The hot dog in its wrapper were forgotten in his free hand, but still-</p><p>“Drop the hot dog,” Castle said quickly, stepping in front of Kate.</p><p>His brother twitched and came away from the wall, and Alex looked at Colin and then back to Castle again. “It’s not a gun,” he said. But he bent his knees and lowered the hot dog in its wrapper to the concrete. “It’s just a knife.”</p><p>Kate gripped his shirt, pressed in against him, and then - before he could do anything - scuttled forward and grabbed the knife.</p><p>“Fuck,” Colin grunted.</p><p>Castle shot him a look, then reached out and cautiously touched Kate’s elbow. She came back to him, not taking her eyes off Alex, until she bumped into Castle’s chest. She gave a little gasp, as if coming into herself once more, and she glanced down at the knife.</p><p>“Put it someplace safe,” he murmured softly, and then pulled her behind him once more.</p><p>“Look,” Alex said, both hands half raised in surrender. “I don’t know what else. I’m just guessing. I think you guys have been misinformed about me. There’s very little-”</p><p>“She saw you inside the facility, Alex.” Colin kicked aside the hot dog, knocking it against the wall of the tunnel. “She saw you. That’s not misinformed.”</p><p>“I - yes - I was there a few times, whenever I could be,” Alex said. “But I’m not involved in this.”</p><p>“How the fuck can you say that?” Castle growled. “You were there.”</p><p>“Are the boys okay?”</p><p>“You don’t have the right to ask that,” Kate snapped, jerking forward. Castle grabbed her by the back of her jeans, just in time, Alex stepping into Colin as he flinched. She was shaking, and Castle gave up the pretense entirely, slid his hand down to take hers.</p><p>Alex’s face flamed. But at least Kate was steady again, a glance of her eyes back to him and then she stood down, stepping back to his side.</p><p>Alex crossed his arms over his chest and eyed them. “What is this, little brother? You’re interrogating me now? Everything I’ve done has been to protect-”</p><p>“Don’t be a fucking asshole,” Colin snarled. “You did what you did for you. Because it made you the big man. Well, guess what, you douchebag, dear old dad is dead. The work is over-”</p><p>“And yet here we are,” Alex shot back. “You’re coming to me because she’s not stable - she sure as hell isn’t stable - and those boys? What have you done with them?”</p><p>“They’re not your concern.” Castle gripped Kate’s hand harder, squeezing to keep her with him. “You don’t get to be worried about them now, not when you were there, when you walked into that damn facility and back out again, free as a bird, and did not one damn thing to help anyone but yourself.”</p><p>Alex’s nostrils flared, eyes narrowed. He jabbed a finger at Castle. “You don’t know what I did, what I went through just to be sure he didn’t keep killing them.”</p><p>“What did you do?” Castle croaked. “Killing them - killing who?”</p><p>“I couldn’t do anything for the girls. Damn it, Richard, I tried. But I had to move on. I did what I could-”</p><p>“You did nothing - while she was being - and you knew it all along-”</p><p>“No.” Alex growled, stepping forward. “You don’t get to judge me. Not you. You who did whatever he damn well told you to.”</p><p>Castle ripped forward, grabbed Alex by his shirt and shook him.</p><p>Alex shoved him away, breathing hard. “You have no idea. You’re all talk, now that he’s dead. Now that he can’t get you. Well, I did something about it. I fucking stood up to him the only way available to me. I said whatever I had to say to get in there for those boys. I was the one who looked out for them. I was their guardian angel. When that woman - when that woman looked like she was going to take them, I’m the one who got her fired.”</p><p>“No,” Kate moaned.</p><p>Castle jerked back, yanked out of his fury by the grief in her voice. He caught her elbows, but she fought free of him to round on Alex.</p><p>“That was you?” Kate growled. “You got her fired? Oh God, she was my last hope.”</p><p>“She was going to take them. She would have taken them-”</p><p>“That was the point. Do you know how damn long it took to get her there. How many months and months of work went into getting her there. She was going to take them away from there. She was going to get them out. And you ruined it. My only - you did that.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Eastman came walking into the tunnel, hands easy, relaxed gait. Kate sank back to the sloped wall, pressed her hand to her face to try to clear her mind. She was shaking.</p><p>The switchblade had been easy to close, and it was in her back pocket, crunching against the stone of the tunnel and reminding her where she was, who she was.</p><p>“Did you find anything?” Castle called to Eastman.</p><p>“Just one. I took care of her.”</p><p>Kate had just lifted her head to follow the conversation when she saw the blood leave Alex’s face. He turned fast and rushed Eastman, entirely awkward and untrained, as if he’d never been trained at all. “Did you kill her? You fucking animal, did you ki-”</p><p>Eastman, of course, caught the man easily and flipped him around, walked him back to Castle and Colin, pinching something in his shoulder so that he wilted, going silent. They drew attention, but Eastman was smiling and nodding, patting Alex’s back like it was nothing.</p><p>“Did you kill someone?” Kate breathed.</p><p>“No, of course not,” Eastman said.</p><p>Alex slumped, and Eastman let go of him. “You didn’t kill her,” he said, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. “God.”</p><p>Colin snorted. “You brought your girlfriend and a knife to a gunfight?”</p><p>Alex stood up straight, glared at Colin. “Wasn’t supposed to be a gunfight, was it?” He pointed his finger at Castle. “And so did he. So you tell me, baby brother. Did I bring my girlfriend to a gunfight?”</p><p>No one spoke. </p><p>Alex turned to Eastman, rubbing his shoulder with flare of that icy anger. “What’d you do to her?”</p><p>“Something similar. She’s sleeping it off on a park bench. And - by the way - she certainly brought a gun to this nice friendly chat between brothers.”</p><p>“Who is she?” Colin snarled.</p><p>“I’m not telling you.” Alex rolled his eyes.</p><p>“I got a picture of her,” Eastman said, digging into his pocket and pulling out his phone. Kate blinked in surprise, but the little Nokia actually had fairly good resolution. Eastman showed it to her first. “You know her, Beckett?”</p><p>“No,” she murmured, shaking her head. Ice trickled through her lungs, like something melting. She shifted away from Castle, dropping her hand from his. “I don’t know her.”</p><p>“Of course not,” Alex sneered. “She’s innocent. She’s only helping me out.”</p><p>“Why’d you bring a girl-” Castle bristled, as if it had suddenly occurred to him. But Kate was clueless; she couldn’t understand how Alex was at once both so deadly and so sympathetic. Castle leaned in and gripped a fistful of his brother’s shirt. “Did you think we’d bring the boys to you?”</p><p>Alex glared mutely back at him.</p><p>Kate’s heart flipped over. “Why?” she rasped. “Why would I-”</p><p>“He thought the girl would what - you and this girlfriend were going to take them from their mother?” Castle growled. “Are you so fucking cold?”</p><p>“Their mother,” Alex spat out. “She doesn’t know those boys. She’s a surrogate, Richard.”</p><p>“She’s their mother,” he roared.</p><p>“And I could be their father!” Alex shoved Castle hard, but Castle didn’t even rock. He caught his brother’s arms and pinned them, shoved him back against the curved wall of the tunnel.</p><p>“You knew,” Castle snarled. “You knew all along-”</p><p>“Only when he told me,” Alex hissed. “It was fucking Russian roulette, any one of us could be those boys’ father, but I was the one he told. I was the one he made complicit, but it’s up to me to carry on the project.”</p><p>“No. No fucking way you’re carrying on the project,” Colin said.</p><p>“It’s not up to you-”</p><p>“You knew he was impregnating this girl with our - with my sons,” Castle shouted, rattling Alex. “Those are my sons, you fucking bastard.”</p><p>But Alex fought him off, skirmishing to try to get free. “You don’t know they’re yours anymore than I do, Richard. Back off. I’m trying to be better for them than Black-”</p><p>“They’re his,” Kate spoke up, her voice stronger than she’d expected. It rang off the stones. “They boys are his.” She reached in between Alex and Castle, though her arm trembled, and she put Castle away from Alex. “We’re in public. Very public, Rick.”</p><p>His face was flushed, his eyes that far away ice, but the moment she touched him, a shift came over him, awareness. </p><p>“How can you possibly know that?” Alex grunted.</p><p>Castle opened his mouth, but Kate pinched his arm, hard, her fingers digging into his skin. </p><p>“You didn’t have time for DNA testing,” Alex pushed. “And I know for sure you don’t know what the hell you’re doing in a lab. So you didn’t do one yourselves. You can’t know their parentage-”</p><p>“We have my medical files,” Kate interrupted. It was true - they did say, specifically and clearly, which DNA she’d been dosed with. “It’s in the files.”</p><p>Alex’s face flushed and for the first time since they’d started this meeting, he actually looked at her. More than just an inconvenience. She had weight. “You have the files,” he said slowly. His eyes tracked to Castle. “You have Dad’s key?”</p><p>Castle was rigid.</p><p>“No, little brother, don’t do this right now. Stop acting like a fucking neanderthal and tell me. Do you have Dad’s key - the master file?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Kate felt the weight of the switchblade in her back pocket.</p><p>Alex scraped a hand through his hair and stared at them, all of them, taking them each in turn. “I need that file, Richard.”</p><p>“No,” Kate said, panic snaking through her.</p><p>“You shut up.” Alex pointed at her. Castle’s hand whipped out and gripped Alex’s finger, twisted until he cried out. “Ah, fuck. Fuck. Richard-”</p><p>“Stop, Castle,” she whispered, grabbing his forearm. He let go, and her face burned, stop acting like a neanderthal. She pressed her cheek to his shoulder and took a breath. “You’re not getting the file.”</p><p>“But I have what you need,” Alex said, wincing as he cradled his hand against his chest. “Ow. Richard, fuck, seriously. I have what you need and you have the key.”</p><p>“What do you have?” Castle scoffed, but Kate could see his mind working - thinking for once, rather than reacting. “What do you have, Alex? You said pedialyte. You said you weren’t involved. You said you were only there to check on the boys - both of whom you are not getting, you and your girlfriend, so put that out of your mind. What really do you have?”</p><p>“I know what worked,” Alex said. “I know what her levels are supposed to be. I know how to keep her stable, and those boys-”</p><p>“You don’t know,” Colin said, sliding between Alex and Eastman. “You just said you don’t have the key. We have the key, we’re the ones who know.”</p><p>“But you have no fucking clue how to translate any of it, do you?”</p><p>Carrie had said it wasn’t complete, that her medical records didn’t show results, only what steps had been taken and when. What procedures. The key. They had the key but no doors to open - Alex had those.</p><p>Kate glanced to Castle. He was thinking; his jaw was working. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, say I get you a copy of the key?”</p><p>“Castle,” Colin growled. Even Eastman stepped up, silently threatening. Colin put a hand to Eastman’s chest. “Castle, do not give him the key. He will only continue the program.”</p><p>“Of course I will,” Alex muttered. “Are you both naive? We have obligations to fulfill. We have contracts we’ve signed with some very fucking powerful people. If I don’t continue the program, our lives our forfeit.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Castle said. “What are you-”</p><p>“You should know. It’s your own line of work.” </p><p>Castle looked entirely blank.</p><p>Alex scoffed. “What do you think you were doing for Dad? All those extracurriculars, those unsanctioned assassinations. Come on, Richard. Seriously? Your dad tells you to kill a man, and you just do it?”</p><p>Castle’s jaw snapped shut, his eyes flaming blue.</p><p>Kate pressed in against his side. “What are saying. You’re saying he assassinated people for the program?”</p><p>“Enemies of the program, to keep people in line, to keep them on our damn side. But you can’t go around smashing in people’s heads, enforcing your rules, and then pull out on your damn partners.”</p><p>“Partners,” Castle echoed.</p><p>“That’s been my job, Richard. He says jump and I say how high. He tells you kill and you say-”</p><p>“No,” Castle growled.</p><p>“Look, you’ve taken everything. You’ve ruined everything. I have to have something to give these people when they come looking for results. I need something, damn it.”</p><p>Colin shoved Alex’s shoulder. “You should’ve thought of that before you walked out of that facility and kept your mouth shut about the fucking horrors he was doing to this girl.”</p><p>“I did what I could. Obviously, you did what you thought was right,” Alex said. “But I - unlike yourselves - live in the real world. I wasn’t given the special privileges and the powers you two got. I had to make my way. And this is life now, Colin. This is life. If I don’t have that fucking key, they will have no mercy. They will hunt us all down like dogs.”</p><p>Beside her, Castle shuddered, that tremor of power that he had whenever he was about to do something explosive, violent. </p><p>When he was about to come. When he was about to kill a man. </p><p>Instead he opened his mouth and spoke. “I have a copy of the key in my pocket. I’ll give it to you. But I want inside Black’s office. No witnesses, no security guards, one hour.”</p><p>-----<br/>Castle could see his brother assessing, thinking, plotting, and all he wanted to do was beat in the man's face. Break bones, make it hurt.</p><p>Make it hurt.</p><p>Kate was hanging on to his arm, and he had the presence of mind to know that any sudden movements, no matter how satisfying, would inadvertently hurt her - either because he would rip out of her light touch or because he would do damage to the one person who might be able to save her life.</p><p>So he stayed.</p><p>"Alright," Alex said quickly. "But we all go. First we get Anne where your watch dog dumped her, and then we go to the Office."</p><p>"No," Colin said.</p><p>"What?" Alex exploded, turning on Col. "I can't leave her there, unconscious in Central Park. Are you insane?"</p><p>"Your concern for women is touching. Really, it is," Castle dryly, but the ice was in his voice. The coldness like a fist around his lungs. "Perhaps if you'd found that regard earlier-"</p><p>"What?" Alex snorted, tossing a gesture towards Kate that made Castle's control shift and slip. "Her? She's a fucking ex-con. I think she knew what she was walking into. No one makes a bargain with the devil and expects to keep their soul."</p><p>Everything stopped.</p><p>The whole world paused and halted, everyone breathless while Alex continued on as if he hadn't just blown apart the whole last hour. </p><p>"I'm sorry, did you say convict?" Eastman said, clearing his throat. </p><p>Kate shrank against his side, and Castle put a hand to her lower back, shoring her up. "I'm not a convict. I wasn't - I didn't volunteer."</p><p>Alex's head whipped back around to her. His mouth opened. Something croaked. </p><p>"She was abducted by Dick Coonan right off the street, you fucking idiot. He stabbed her mother in front of her and then took her to Black who fucking traded for her." Castle felt the rage towering in him, the rage so blind and cold and gripping that reached out and grabbed-</p><p>"I - no, no, no," Alex moaned. Castle first hit got his brother's ribs and he felt the way they gave, felt it against his knuckles, the bone meeting bone. The stone wall under his fist when Alex collapsed, and the knees of his pants soaked with the dirty water at the tunnel, grind and grit, the supreme satisfaction of action, aggression burning through the ice. And then incoherence and chaos, and shouting, and was it him doing that, were people-</p><p>"Stop."</p><p>He roared out a breath and lurched backwards, spilling on his ass. Beckett pressing her hands into his shoulders and her face against his, forehead to forehead, and now his breath came again, again, now his lungs eased and his chest loosened.</p><p>"Stop, baby, you have to stop," she chanted against him.</p><p>"Kate," he garbled.</p><p>Her eyes flared open and caught his own. Her hands reached up and cupped his face. He brought a hand up to catch hers, groaned at the scrape of gravel and pain across his knuckles. </p><p>"What did I do?" he husked.</p><p>"You beat the shit out of your brother - or tried. Eastman has him, taking him. Castle, sweetheart, you can't do that."</p><p>He shook his head. He knew that; he had the taste of that rage filling to despair in his mouth like blood. "What did I do for him that - that led us here?" he cried out. "Blind and stupid, never once questioning, never once - just like Alex."</p><p>"But not now," she said fiercely. "Now stand up and help Eastman carry him. We have to get the girl too. We're getting his girlfriend."</p><p>"Yes, ma'am," he rasped, and lurched to his feet with Kate rising before him, Kate. Just Kate.</p><p>She cradled his broken hand between hers and led the way out of the dark tunnel.</p><p>-----</p><p>Anne was a redhead in jeans and a tight t-shirt, sparkling, rhinestones on her flipflops. Kate could see down her cleavage where the plunging v-neck dipped a little low, and the lace of her turquoise bra peeked through.</p><p>“Her?” Kate muttered, narrowing her eyes at the unconscious woman.</p><p>Castle let out a noise that - when she turned to look at him - she realized was a laugh. His bloodied hand came up and touched the back of her head, and he dropped a rather clumsy kiss against her temple. “Love,” he murmured, and she didn’t know if he meant verb or noun.</p><p>“Anne,” Alex murmured, leaning over her, lightly slapping her face. He turned to look at Eastman. “How long is she going to be out? What exactly did you do-”</p><p>“Pressure point. And you’re not getting the gun back. No one that untrained should have a weapon in a public park, Alex. I trained you better than that.”</p><p>Alex flushed and turned back to Anne, and after a moment, a moment that was long enough to make Castle antsy, rumbling in his chest as he stood beside her, Anne started to come around. Her eyes fluttered open and she gasped, jerking upright and crying out Alex’s name. Her arms slung around Alex’s neck and she let out a little dramatic sob, and Alex ate it up.</p><p>“No wonder,” Kate sighed to herself. </p><p>Castle glanced at her, hand resting heavy on her neck, and he blinked. “No wonder?”</p><p>“He hates women,” she said, shrugging tightly. “Or - has no respect. And that’s who - well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?”</p><p>Castle glanced back at Anne, who was whimpering into Alex’s neck and being rather simpering, if Kate said so, and then Castle’s lips thinned and he dropped his hand from her. “I think - ah. We don’t have mothers, Kate. Our mothers left us to him, gave up, wouldn’t do it, couldn’t do it, never came back for us. So.”</p><p>She sobered, tilting her head as she watched Anne and Alex together, how Alex touched her face and Anne soaked it up like a flower in the sun. “I’d hate my mother too if she’d left me to Black,” she murmured, and her eyes burned, harsh and gritty so that she had to turn her face away.</p><p>Castle pressed in close and her nose bumped his shoulder, the sharp inhale of blood and dirt and sweat - but cotton and laundry below that - and she shivered. His mangled hand was heavy on her hip, like he still didn’t quite feel it yet. But his lips touched her ear. “Your mom didn’t leave you to him, honey. Your mom never would have left you if she could’ve stayed. Never.”</p><p>She nodded. “I know.”</p><p>“I know you know.”</p><p>“I know she didn’t want to.”</p><p>“Ice skating for New Year’s,” he murmured. “And the carousel every summer. You stole her St Joan medallion and she turned around and bought you a gold chain of your own. What else?”</p><p>“She - she took me to the big public library every Wednesday night, even if she was in the middle of a case, and I checked out a huge stack that she would carry home for me.”</p><p>“What else?”</p><p>Kate balked, seeing the girlfriend stand up from the bench now, Eastman and Colin clustered around, supporting Alex and the girl, but Castle stroked the back of his fingers down her neck.</p><p>“What else, Kate? What else? Because I have nothing. I got nothing, honey, no mother at all, no one to take me-”</p><p>“I take you - I want you,” she croaked, stupid with it, thinking about him with no one at all and how Wyatt looked like him and the way that little boy whimpered into her chest when he thought he wasn’t getting all of her attention. “Don’t, don’t, I’ve got you.”</p><p>He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her up off her feet so that her toes barely skimmed the earth. They were all watching them, and she didn’t even care; she didn’t care. He was strong and warm and he needed her.</p><p>He needed her.</p><p>It didn’t matter that Alex was looking. Let him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Chapter 22</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eastman kept giving him this look and Castle knew he was responsible, and that he wasn’t looking that stable, but he was fucking trying. He was trying, damn it, and Eastman could at least show him some damn respect; it wasn’t like he was really going to give Alex that key.</p><p>The walk to the Office was slow, filled with Anne who couldn’t shut the fuck up, tittering in Alex’s ear every few yards (but he figured she was nervous and there were three armed strangers plus Beckett who looked like a warrior queen) and Alex turning around and asking for confirmation that Castle really would keep his side of the deal.</p><p>He wouldn’t. The flash drive he had in his pocket was the one he had created when he thought maybe Carrie shouldn’t have the real information, just an approximation of things, an idea of the concepts but none of the details. In the end, he had given Carrie the real one, because Kate had wanted to remain silent, not give voice to it, and he couldn’t help himself when it came to her.</p><p>Shrinking each other really wasn’t happening. She mostly got out of it. And he kept letting her.</p><p>His hand was numb and hot, pulsing with every step. He had known, somewhere inside him,  that he couldn’t beat the shit out of his brother, that it wouldn’t do her any good. But while the rage had flashed over him, he had been able only to deflect his blows at the last moment. He had gotten more chunks of the stone tunnel than he had his own brother, and he supposed he ought to feel grateful for that instinct for preservation of a source that had been inculcated in him from a young age.</p><p>Don’t burn your bridges, Richard.</p><p>He sighed and Kate’s fingers tucked into the pocket on his cargo pants, tugging until he looked at her. She gave him that sly smile from the side of her face so that she looked exactly like James, and yet entirely seductive - the two didn’t match but they did, and he was hot inside for her - and she bumped his hip as they trailed behind the group.</p><p>Alex stopped them at the entrance to the subway station and put his hands on his hips. “I want some guarantee here. For both of us, Anne and me. Richard, you said no security, one hour, alone. So. You’re the only one going in. No one else.”</p><p>“Anne stays with them,” Castle said immediately, even though Kate stiffened.</p><p>“No,” Alex said, shaking his head. “She’s with me. I’m not leaving her alone with them.”</p><p>“No. That gives me no guarantees.”</p><p>The two eyed each other, and Castle felt his irritation burning into that terrible rage again, how it flamed up in him. A fucking convict. She had chosen-<br/>“Anne comes with me,” Kate said suddenly. Castle croaked and turned to her, ready to fight her on that one, but she held up her hand. “The four of us go all the way to your stop, and then Anne and I will wait on the subway platform for you two to return. Both of you to return. Do you understand?”</p><p>Castle’s instinctive denial flared into all-consuming pride. How she stood, how she faced him, how her whole body was bristling and hard and unshakeable.</p><p>Alex’s face went pale. He shot a look to Castle as if he hoped Castle would deny her. No fucking way. Alex was somehow under the impression Kate was the worst of all of them, and let him. Let him fear for Anne’s fucking life.</p><p>“Okay,” Alex said finally, swallowing hard.</p><p>“Colin,” Castle said quietly, giving his brother a long look, holding it clear in his mind, the feeling, that one burning feeling so that it wouldn’t - couldn’t - be mistaken.</p><p>“Fine,” Colin said, teeth gritting, but Castle saw Colin’s flickering eyes. Eastman, however, hadn’t gotten that message, and he started protesting, appealing first to Kate and then turning to him.</p><p>“No,” Castle said, cutting him off. “No. Talk to Colin. We need to go. Kate.”</p><p>She stepped forward with him, following Alex and Anne down the wide staircase and into the poorly lit subway station. Behind him, he could already hear Colin murmuring under his breath to Eastman, explaining, hopefully explaining, how Castle had no damn intention of giving up their secrets.</p><p>Or their advantages.</p><p>Alex wasn’t a spy. He had boardroom experience, negotiating experience, but with money and rules and not with lives. If he truly thought Kate had made a deal with Black, had asked for that kind of treatment, then Alex had absolutely no real world experience.</p><p>He wouldn’t see it coming.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle was feeling her up as the subway car swung through the tunnel and down the tracks, hurtling towards the next stop. She liked it, of course she liked it, and it turned her on, but there was something sweet about it that she hadn't expected, that she hadn't seen coming.</p><p>His fingers pressed into the seam of her jeans and she went up on her toes behind him, her grip on the pole tightening. She struggled to keep her face blank, as if it were a test, though Alex and Anne were hand in hand just beside her, the four of them crushed together in a tight, crowded subway car.</p><p>He was touching her to keep her mind off it, and she knew that was why and yet it worked anyway. She couldn't concentrate on the press of people or the fact that when Alex had his head turned away like that, he looked exactly like John Black. She tried to concentrate, she kept trying, her mind scrambling for purchase, but then Castle would piano his fingers between her legs or brush his bicep between her breasts and everything would be gone again, burned in the heat building in her groin.</p><p>It was so damn sweet she thought she might cry, but instead she laid her cheek to the back of her hand where it was wrapped around the pole and she just hung on for dear life.</p><p>And then Alex pushed on Castle as the car came out into the light and the platform opened up and they were nearly to the World Trade Center, and she knew this was it. How fitting that the silence on the subway grew bleak and wary and respectful, that people picked up their heads and looked around, made eye contact with every other person still here, all of them survivors. </p><p>The actual subway stop for WTC was closed, Castle had told her before, closed because the sheer amount of SAR personnel and clean up and relief efforts was so massive that they'd repurposed another line for the work. Still. Almost a year later. He had shown her photos and videos on the computer, shown her the towers coming down, and all she could think about was how her mother's law offices had been in the north tower, how all those people were gone, so many people, but her mother would have been as well.</p><p>Damned if you don't, damned if you do.</p><p>Neither was better, both were horrific; she shied away from thinking about that too, and Castle's fingers, irreverent and reverent all at once, caressed her inside thigh and circled the place where her clit was buried beneath layers of material. She let out a long breath, relief and feeling, and tilted her head just enough for her ear to brush his shoulder.</p><p>He moved his arm and wrapped his hand around the back of her thigh, angled his neck in a way that had to put a crick in it, and he kissed her forehead.</p><p>She closed her eyes as the subway car came to a jerking halt.</p><p>"This is our stop," Alex said. His eyes were narrowed, watching them with fresh appraisal. "You girls stay on the platform. We should be back in a couple hours."</p><p>"Shut up, Alex," Castle said, taking Kate's hand and pulling her ahead of him off the car. She stepped out onto the platform and Castle nudged at her back, guiding her forward through the crowd to a spot by a phone booth with a cut cord and graffiti badly painted over. A bench, a door for the women's bathroom, and Castle shook his head once - don't go in.</p><p>She waited as Alex and Anne joined them, the girl in her flipflops and sparkly t-shirt hanging on to Alex as if she'd never been in a crowd before. Kate planned on interrogating the shit out of this girl the second they were alone, and at least that might help. </p><p>"You have the knife," Castle said to her quietly. He cupped the side of her face and Alex's eyes grew shrewd. She had to stop looking at him. Look at Castle. "You know how to use it. I'm depending on you, Kate. If I come back and you're not here, I'm gonna lose it."</p><p>"I know," she said, nodding. He kept hold of her jaw with this thumb and fingers and she saw he wanted to do much more than this. Her heart was thundering, and Alex was watching, but she said it anyway. "I want you alone the second we can."</p><p>"Well, great," Alex said, rolling his eyes.</p><p>"Ditto," Castle rasped, drawing her in against him. But it was cover; she felt the tension in his body, heard the words whispered against her ear with Alex studying them. "Be on guard, baby. She's not what she seems."</p><p>Castle pulled back, a significant look at her and she nodded, hoped he could feel her, how she had this. She would have this. He needed her to have this.</p><p>Castle turned and gestured for Alex to lead the way, and his older brother did, a backward glance to Anne before they were lost in the crowd.</p><p>Kate pushed up on the balls of her feet and studied the woman she had found herself with.</p><p>Anne was studying her right back.</p><p>-----</p><p>It was a short walk, though redirected and detoured by blocks that had been closed to through traffic, even foot traffic, due to the clean up taking place at World Trade. Castle paid strict attention, though he knew Alex would dismantle their father's office the moment they left, put out a call and have it taken apart, moved elsewhere.</p><p>"Are you really going to continue this program?" he asked. His shoes ground fine bits of debris underfoot. Still. After nearly a year, this section of the city was still wounded. Castle felt it in himself like a raw place, a sore he had grown used to. He wondered, suddenly, what Kate felt about it.</p><p>"Richard, don't ask stupid questions."</p><p>"You can't, Alex. I'm - this isn't Colin asking, it's me. You know me, you know what the program has done for me, the - good."</p><p>"Unmatched," Alex muttered, and if irony and bitterness were in his voice, it was only exactly as it always had been.</p><p>"That's exactly my point," Castle begged. "You keep this going and it will be - at best - what happened to you and Ben all over again. And Colin. You think Colin is stable? He's not stable, Alex. He's not full-out crazy, but he's halfway there."</p><p>"He has episodes," Alex said, and Castle heard their father's voice in it.</p><p>"What could he have possibly said to you that made you think - that makes you think - that any of this was ever okay?"</p><p>"Shut up, Richard."</p><p>"I'm serious. This isn't me grandstanding or playing it up to make the girl like me. I am so fucking serious about this. Even I knew, the moment I saw with my own eyes what was going on, even I knew it was wrong. Wrong in a bad, deep way, Alex. Why don't you have that?"</p><p>"I'm not stable either, am I?" Alex said, turning his head suddenly and letting Castle see his eyes. The same as their father's, same as Castle's, blue blue. But Alex's were lifeless. "I'm not stable, never have been. Whatever holes are in my brain-"</p><p>"I don't accept that," Castle growled. "That's an excuse, the easy way out, and you were trained just as I was to flatten your affect and appear to be not what you are."</p><p>Alex's eyes slid away, though the corner of his mouth twitched. "Very good, little brother."</p><p>"Are we brothers?" he cried out. "Are we at all?"</p><p>"DNA says-"</p><p>"Fuck DNA. DNA means nothing. That man was not a father to any of us. Our mothers - what mothering was done? Nothing, we had nothing but each other, and you could be related to the fucking man on the moon and you'd be my brother. But if you keep doing this, going down this path, I can't have you."</p><p>"You think I care if you have me? You and Colin have always had each other. Ben-"</p><p>"Ben needs us. Even if you say you don't. You'd take Ben's family away from him just because you can't stand up and do the right thing?"</p><p>"The right thing? Are you fucking kidding me, Richard? Who are you to decide what's right?"</p><p>"It's not a decision, it's not an arbitrary line I'm drawing in the sand. Open your eyes and your ears, listen and look, what was done to her. What was done to us."</p><p>"You don't know her. She volunteered-"</p><p>"She was abducted at nineteen."</p><p>Alex's nostrils flared and he stopped suddenly. "You haven't seen what I've seen." Castle thought his brother was going to hit him, even as he walked stiffly due to the blows he'd already taken, but instead he turned and yanked open a steel door set into the side of the alley. "I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you exactly what she is, and then you'll see."</p><p>He pushed his thumb to the faceplate and the second inner door clicked and popped open. A blue UV light burned from overhead and below, Castle and Alex stuck in another anteroom while the light went over them. His father was so fucking paranoid, he had UV light to kill biological microorganisms? Damn.</p><p>Oh, even worse. Stains on his pants. Heh. That - he wished Kate were here right now, wondered what her fingers looked like, if her shirt had these same smears of glowing light (even as the UV's level burned it away), thought about how he could lifted the hem of her shirt and splay his fingers at her abs and coast upward, inspecting every inch under the blue light, looking for evidence of them.</p><p>"You're being led by your dick," Alex sneered. "I never thought I'd see the day. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. You'll see. You'll see and then you'll be glad I got you away from her."</p><p>The light cut off. Castle turned his head to Alex even as the third door clicked open for them. "Nothing you show me, nothing you say, will ever erase the picture in my head of how I found her, where I found her, and what things were done to her. Nothing you put in the balance will ever outweigh her."</p><p>"Just wait."</p><p>Alex pushed through the door and Castle followed, unwilling to alienate his brother so completely before he had the chance to get inside that office. He needed it clean and he needed it free of security, and Alex had promised. But he could press a button and send out an alarm and that would be it. Done.</p><p>A stairwell, a tiny space at the bottom like a broom closet where Castle could see security monitors - all dark. He took a breath and climbed the stairs after Alex, feeling those beams of light on him, the tracking devices of their internal security system. "You didn't turn off the lasers?"</p><p>"No. Never do. They won't initiate the self-defense program unless you fire your weapon."</p><p>"I don't plan on doing that," Castle murmured wryly.</p><p>"Good." Grim satisfaction in Alex's voice. He opened the door at the third flight of stairs with his thumbprint and Castle went in after him, following his brother into a narrow hall that had only one door at the end. "This is it. I know you said alone, but I need to show you one thing before you start wrecking the place."</p><p>"Alright," Castle agreed. He just wanted inside that room.</p><p>"You give me the-"</p><p>"Kate has it on her," Castle said smugly. "I slipped it into her back pocket with the knife in the subway. I know you saw."</p><p>Alex's jaw worked. "You - looked amorous."</p><p>"Nice word, but no. I was doing my job. You'll get the master file when I get back to her."</p><p>Alex let out a hard breath and punched in a code to the panel by the door, hesitated a moment before putting his thumb to the flat gel display. It opened with the same click as the other doors and then Castle went inside.</p><p>Alex came with him, moving past him quickly towards a media station set up at the far end. The office was all dark wood and leather, modeled after a boys' club with hunter green lamp shades on the walls sconces and wood paneling behind the massive oak desk. The media center was a tube television set into the far wall, a VCR and DVD combo below it with some kind of stereo component that controlled things.</p><p>Alex had gone straight to that, but Castle scanned the room for its secrets, not its obvious functional tools. The painting of Washington crossing the Potomac was a possibility, though the sconces themselves were just enough decorative to be out of place and interesting to him. He made inventory of all of these spots, and was just moving to the desk for a closer look when Alex let out a noise of triumph.</p><p>Castle looked up. The television showed snow, Alex's head in profile. His brother turned, a remote in his hand, and the sheer vivid intensity on his face made Castle's heart go cold.</p><p>He looked exactly like Black.</p><p>"It's here. He kept the videos, both of them. This is what I wanted you to see."</p><p>And Alex pointed the remote to the media center, and the screen resolved immediately into a stark white room. A stark white room and a girl on an army cot.</p><p>Kate.</p><p>Alex pressed play and Kate was writhing, flinging herself from the bed so that it flipped and her face smashed into the floor, but she was up immediately, whipping the light metal frame around and crushing it against a man who had entered. The man fell back, blood spurting from his nose, his head ricocheting off the wall. </p><p>There was sound as Alex turned the volume up, and her screams grew and grew until at only half the bar, she was wild and primal and gut-clenching terrifying, and another security guard came in and was treated with the same brutal, unstoppable force.</p><p>The frame ripped free and he saw the leather straps dangling from one leg and one metal post, and then Kate hurled the light army cot over her head and into the next man. The guard's neck snapped back and even at low volume, even through the sound of Kate's inhuman rage, there was the audible crack of instant death as the spine severed.</p><p>The man dropped and Kate ripped her hands from the cot's frame, leaving long tracks from her own fingernails, blood dripping down to her elbows and spotting the floor. She climbed the precarious heap of cot and dead man, and lashed out, flailing wildly from one man to the next, blood smearing the walls, the floor, her body, her rage and her screams, her violence terrible and psychotic.</p><p>She had taken down three men before Dr Saber - with a phalanx of body guards - dropped her with a tranquilizer gun. She slapped at her neck and her eyes went wild and empty and vicious, and then she collapsed and it was over.</p><p>The video ended.</p><p>"That was only the first," Alex said. And then he pressed play again.</p><p>-----</p><p>"I'm not fooled," Kate said immediately, shifting to put herself on balance. "Eastman was, I think, but I'm not."</p><p>Anne smiled thinly, turned her head as if she was staring off into the crowd, but she wasn't. She was tracking Kate's shift in her peripheral vision.</p><p>"John Black trained me," Kate told her quietly. "And I'm pretty sure you weren't."</p><p>A twitch went through the woman's forearm. That alone. Kate knew she was right; she had instinct for this, honed by three years in that place and intimate contact with John Black. She knew.</p><p>"He had me strapped down and locked in a little white room for one thousand two hundred and seven days. I counted."</p><p>Anne's index finger flicked but it was too obvious, too obvious a tell and Kate scanned the woman's body fast, taking in everything, feeling it in her bones, the changes and the information. </p><p>"But you know that."</p><p>Anne said nothing and the nothing was a tell too. </p><p>Kate gave herself a moment to think, to plan out what she said, to do this right. "I bet John Black was seriously pissed when you started fucking his oldest son."</p><p>Anne flinched. Not big, not so that anyone else would notice, but she turned the flinch into a natural movement that would have smoothed everything over had Kate not been Kate.</p><p>"He assigned you to handle him, keep tabs on him, and instead you ruined him."</p><p>"He's not ruined," Anne snapped.</p><p>So there was something. Not love, or if it was, it was the kind made broken and twisted by proximity to John Black. But something. Kate could use that. "Was it the ice pick or was it the fingernails?"</p><p>Anne sucked in a rattling breath and her face went pale.</p><p>Kate thrilled, standing taller, but warier, so much more awareness thrumming in her blood. "Both. Wow. And you promised never to touch him again, and he petted you like a good little girl, and he let you back on the job."</p><p>"I'm not here for conversation," Anne said tightly. "I am here only as a guarantee. I'm armed. But so are you. So let's keep this peaceful, shall we?"</p><p>Kate felt triumph like a damn taste in her mouth, like blood from a hit, and it was so good. "Then Alex didn't tell you. That was remiss of him. Anne, darling, I gouged out Black's eyeball with a scalpel and ripped his jugular open. His head was hanging on by threads."</p><p>Anne's whole body reacted, and Kate crouched, instinct or caution, her arms up and braced, the knife in her fingers and blade out.</p><p>"Put that away," Anne rasped. "Put that away, holy God. You - you really are as bad as Alex said."</p><p>Kate straightened, saw Anne had both palms flat and raised, her red hair swinging, her upper lip beaded with seat, her eyes intense. Kate closed up the blade and put it back in her pocket, felt the flash drive she hadn't known Castle had left with her.</p><p>Her heart stilled.</p><p>"You killed him. You really killed him. He's really dead."</p><p>Kate nodded, still assimilating the blade and next to it the flash drive, but she remembered more how Castle had looked at her I've got this; you have to have my back. </p><p>She did. She had his back. She would not jeopardize this.</p><p>"Holy God, you really killed him."</p><p>Anne sagged back against the dirty tile and put her hand in her heads, but Kate was primed, aware, she would not be tricked.</p><p>The woman lifted her head, her eyes were dazed, and then they cleared, and she studied Kate. "I don't know what you are. I don't know what I am. But I have something for you."</p><p>Kate rocked back on her heels, centering her balance, but Anne didn't attack. She walked off into the crowd.</p><p>"Wait," she yelped, following fast. "Wait, what are you doing?"</p><p>"You're coming with me," Anne called back. "You need to see this. It's for you."</p><p>And then Anne plunged into the crowd.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle had no time to process, no time to react to the horror that had washed through him, because Alex had forwarded to the next video and he saw Kate again. And for a moment, Kate was all he saw, the beautiful raw image of her: lithe, toned, in a black tank and black shorts that made her legs look impressive and strong, dancing around on a blue gym mat, more energy than she had any right to.</p><p>Elixir strong. Elixir quick.</p><p>The man in the middle of the room had a whip.</p><p>Castle's stomach dropped out.</p><p>The whip flicked and Kate darted away, reflex training, dodging faster than the whip could cut, but she had lashes on her shoulders, a line of blood at her forehead and one lash across her eyebrow (he had seen that line in her eyebrow, not a scar but like a crooked place, oh God) and blood across her knees, her knuckles, her elbows.</p><p>He saw her take one, a stripe that curled at her neck, and she choked, one shoulder raised defensively just as they'd taught him not to do when he had done this same program, and the trainer came in close to finish it, just as Castle's trainer had said would happen.</p><p>There was no knife, but there was the man's fists, and he got her ribs where the shank would have gone in and severed her aorta as it came down behind her heart, and Kate gave the usual, rookie move and froze, stunned by the blow, but-</p><p>But he saw her face. And clearly everyone who had ever viewed this video had seen her face.</p><p>Absolute cold clarity. She had done it on purpose to get the trainer in close and the whip down.</p><p>Castle almost couldn't follow the move; she was elixir fast. It was a blur of bending forward as if stunned, her arm hooking the trainer's where the punch had landed, and then she flipped over his back and landed with just enough momentum to get her roundhouse kick solid. Squared up. At the trainer's jaw.</p><p>Her face was deadly intent and purposeful as she unleashed that kick, the face Castle had seen when she had come at him in the bathroom, the same flip move she'd gotten him with, but she'd had a scalpel blade then.</p><p>On the video she had one kick, and she didn't pull it back in time like they were taught in training.</p><p>She snapped the man's neck and he crumpled immediately, a sack of bones and the release of bowels, and Kate stood from her crouch and lowered her braced arms and looked straight into the monitor.</p><p>"I'm ready. Are you?"</p><p>-----</p><p>She caught Anne's arm before the woman made it to the escalator, jerked her back hard, using Anne's forward momentum to spin her back and propel her to a darkened recess behind the moving staircase.</p><p>"No," Beckett hissed. "No. We are staying here. You're not going anywhere and I will use this knife without hesitation."</p><p>Anne faltered, chest heaving, and she really hadn't had the kind of training Kate had undergone in that facility. She wasn't an operative; she was a woman picked from a staffing pool and told to keep emotional tabs on a man who was set to take over Black's kingdom. </p><p>Perhaps even to service him. And it wasn't the sexual relationship that Black had despised, it was the relationship. The things Anne had said that showed how she had cracked, gotten weak. Kate knew that too, knew how the man abhorred warmth and familiarity, disdained all forms of connection. A unit, Castle had said; he had made his brothers into a fighting unit, not a family.</p><p>When she boys had been given back to her, Beckett had been the one strapped to a gurney in the procedure room while Black sat on a folding chair and explained the things he could do with an ice pick, fondling her fingernails as he clipped them short, one by one, pressing a little too deep, sliding his own nail just under hers so that it burned for days, as if the nail had been separated from the bed.</p><p>She knew what he could do with words. She had studied and learned and she had found her own way, but Anne-</p><p>"I can't with the rest of them around," Anne said fast, her words choppy and her breathing too irregular. "They're his sons."</p><p>"I don't know about Alex. Like you said, I don't know what he is. He could go either way. But Castle is solid," Beckett answered. </p><p>"He's Alex's brother," Anne said, nostrils flaring as she thumped her head back into the tile wall. "Damn it, girl. Let me go get-"</p><p>"He won't if I say he won't." Beckett stepped back, just enough room so that it didn't appear to outsiders like she was mugging Anne. "He does what I ask."</p><p>"Sure he does." A flick of her eyes down and up again. </p><p>"I was caged by a monster for three years. I know what monsters look like. Castle is a puppy."</p><p>Anne's face changed, something closing off. But Kate didn't understand it, couldn't read the emotion. She had little experience with emotions beyond anger, fear, betrayal, satisfaction, and disgust. Things like hope or joy, things like responsibility or contentment, even love - those had been harder. It had taken a year for her to work on that nurse tech who would've stolen the boys away. A year.</p><p>Usually this was a one week deal. It was easier to make someone afraid of you than to make them love you.</p><p>"He loves me," Kate said quickly. "You don't know what that feels like."</p><p>"Yes, I do," Anne said, shaking her head, eyes closed. Her chin dropped. "I know what it feels like."</p><p>Oh. Alex was capable? Not like Castle. Never like Castle. "And yet you were the one on lookout in Central Park."</p><p>"I asked to be there," Anne flared up, subsisted immediately. "That was my choice, my call to make. He doesn't have the training."</p><p>"Yes, he does," Kate said softly, sighing at Anne. Sympathy. Pathetic. "He was trained like the other brothers were trained, darling."</p><p>"Stop - shit - stop staying that like he says that. Fuck. You can't hold a knife on me and say that to me and then expect us to talk about how they love us."</p><p>Kate took a step back, giving her a little more space. Anne was quiet now, quieter, settled into the long task of hostage. "John Black is father. He's poised to take over Black's program. He knows how to make you come around to what's best for him."</p><p>"And your Castle isn't doing the same?"</p><p>"No. I've - hurt him badly. And yet here he is." Kate swallowed hard, disoriented by how that got to her. She'd only meant to say it, to make a point, but it shook her. She had to work to get back. "Tell me what it is you want to go get and Castle will take you."</p><p>Anne frowned, chewed on a fingernail, though that was partially an act. She'd had some training, some good training, but not the moves Kate had been given. Not the elixir. </p><p>"I don't have the knife out," Kate reminded her. "You can walk away if you want, but I made him a promise. I have his back. He has mine. He holds me here - and no one holds me. You can trust him."</p><p>Anne let out a short breath and ripped the nail from her thumb down to the quick, making it bleed. She stared down at her hand. "He didn't ever - he never used the ice pick on me. He just talked about it. Like you talk. Just on and on, and it scared - holy God - I can't even tell you how... but he did slide this thin paper under my fingernails. Bled for days and days. I thought I was going to die - I would rather have died. I would rather - but then Alex. He came to my apartment and said we had to just hide it, we would just hide in plain sight and it worked."</p><p>"Did it?" Or had it all been planned?</p><p>"I know where Black had another drop site. A vault. A bank vault. I can take you. I think it had medical stuff. Vials of insulin and stuff like that. A vault. I'll take you. He's dead. I can take you."</p><p>-----</p><p>"Get out." Castle scraped his hand down his face, trying to breathe. "You promised an hour. Get out."</p><p>"Richard."</p><p>He lifted his head, crackling, everything burning. "After what I just saw, what you saw and didnothing to stop, you would be better off waiting outside like I ask."</p><p>"She's not stable, Richard. She will fucking kill you-"</p><p>"If you value your life." No other words would come; he was gritting his teeth so fiercely to keep from snapping his brother's neck, from doing absolute damage, final damage, and he couldn't. He could not. For Kate. For Kate. Kate.</p><p>Despair washed through him so sharply he felt his knees give, and he had to clutch at the edge of the desk to stay standing. Kate. Oh, baby, oh, God, honey, Kate-</p><p>"Richard - Castle. Come on, little brother. Don't do this. You're better than this. She's not who you think-"</p><p>"Her mother was stabbed to death by Dick Coonan - a man our father made - brutally attacked in an alley off 86th Street. A hired hit. He was doing freelance work for Senator Bracken, who was angling to get the Director removed from the CIA. Remember that? That's how I got the job of Deputy Director, because that man was ousted." He was amazed his voice was steady. He felt like throwing up. "Johanna Beckett. Lawyer. You can look up the incident report the NYPD filed and the report the CIA asked them to redact. I did. Colin did the grunt work, but we fucking checked her story, Alex."</p><p>His brother stood before the snow on the television screen, his face pale. </p><p>"Coonan snatched her by the hair and dragged her to his car - there's video of that too, if you want to see it. A nineteen year old girl sobbing and screaming for her mother. Bar across the street had trouble with gang signs tagged on their walls, so they mounted cameras. Black had those confiscated. He kept them, because Colin found them, and I watched. Do you want to watch, Alex? Brother, do you like to watch?"</p><p>Alex pressed a hand to his throat but Castle had just gotten started.</p><p>"And then Coonan sold her to Black because she looked feisty on the video surveillance tapes he had to disappear just to keep this under wraps. You know how I know that part? Because Black came to me three years ago and told me Coonan was a liability; he had gone out under his own contract to assassinate and he had tangled with a girl and raped her. That's what he told me. He raped a girl. And you know what I said in response? I said, That breaks code. He broke code, and he had to be dealt with. So I did. I dealt with him, covering up the last ties anyone would ever have to finding out the truth of what had happened to a nineteen year old girl ripped from her mother's dying side."</p><p>"Oh, God."</p><p>"And there's more, Alex. Oh, brother. There's more. You know our father, you know what he likes, how he likes it. It's not sex for him, it never has been, and we've talked about that, the four of us, laughed about what a damn cold fish he is, how he must get his rocks off manipulating and using and abusing people, just like he did with us."</p><p>"Oh, God, oh, God. Richard, don't-"</p><p>"If he showed you those videos you so politely served up to me, then he did it for a reason. To make you believe his version. Did you ever ask? Did you ever look at her in the face and ask her if she wasn't as desperate and hopeless and wanting to die as we were?"</p><p>"She was a convict; she had set the children's home on fire when they kicked her out. An orphan. Kicked her out and set it on fire and four were dead. I saw the fire department's report. I saw-"</p><p>"You saw what Black fed you. When has Black ever fed us anything but hatred and lies and terror?"</p><p>"Oh, God, I'm gonna be sick," Alex moaned.</p><p>"Then do it outside," Castle growled. "I have work to do, and I want my fucking hour alone."</p><p>-----</p><p>Anne talked.</p><p>It was like the dam had broken and everything came spilling out. She started with Alex, came around to the bank vault (she had only the account number and an address; she had made deliveries), rambled about Alex again, devolved into explaining her link to Black through Saber. </p><p>Saber didn't hire smart girls; he hired pretty girls to fetch. Anne was fetching alright. But she was smart too, and Black had seen smart and Saber had been mysteriously gone one day (Castle had killed him, Kate knew that much but said nothing) and so Anne had been recruited. She'd done deliveries from the lab to the bank, knew the account number, had stacked them up inside a lift and someone in the bank had done the unloading in an underground vault. It was not a usual bank. It was not accredited, had no name on the outside.</p><p>Kate filed away information as fast as Anne gave it, hungry for everything, all of it, wanting to know as if the knowledge could be used against Black even dead and gone.</p><p>But mostly it was Alex, and Kate had to suppress the urge to shudder every time the woman talked about that man like he was a knight in shining armor.</p><p>"You know my own dad was a real asshole, and Alex just - he knew. He got it. We used to sit together at this Italian place - a little cafe table together on the sidewalk - and he would hold my hand and talk. He just - he talked to me. Like I was real. No one really - I guess you know. You were there with Black. But Dr Saber was such a piece of work. Sometimes Alex says something to me and I think, I know who raised you. Because it was this pride with Dr Saber about how he had a hand in bringing up the brothers. But Alex was the charming one, so good at talking and listening, and that's what he did. He made me feel like I was never going to have to be alone again."</p><p>Beckett had some idea, now, of what the Eastmans had felt when they'd seen her and Castle together, knowing only that Castle was a son of Black. It didn't make her feel good, and she'd have to find a way to repair that damage. More than threats, better than promises. A way toshow them she was better off with Castle than alone.</p><p>And Beckett was enduring two hours of this. Torture. </p><p>"You don't know what it's like when this man who is so powerful and rich and successful. He's a doctor first, you know, so he's incredibly intelligent. Genius level. And he talks to me. He wants to hear what I have to say."</p><p>She doubted that. She'd seen how Alex had treated Anne at the park. Like a doll.</p><p>"He's so smart and he gives me presents. I never had much money growing up and things like - even McDonalds for dinner? No, that was such a treat. But Alex takes me places and gives me the best food and wine and shows up on my doorstep with some expensive thing. At the beginning, I would go behind his back and return it all, kept the cash for myself, or store credit depending. And then he just - it was so much. I had thousands of dollars socked away, and he didn't ask where was the little laughing Buddha he bought or what did I do with the bracelet. He just bought me something else, said this time he was going to get it right."</p><p>She was going to vomit if she had to listen to anymore of this-</p><p>"Kate?"</p><p>Beckett jerked out of the dark alcove, headed for the escalator where Castle was already scanning her face. He'd spotted her out of the crowd, not where he had told her to stay, and when he reached her, Kate couldn't help throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing hard.</p><p>"I'm so glad it was you," she husked. Not anyone else. Not Alex and his dumb as shit girlfriend with the stupid ass bracelet and sock drawer of money. "How lucky I am that it's you."</p><p>And she kissed him as softly, as absolutely tenderly as she could possibly make herself.</p><p>-----</p><p>Her mouth was devastating. </p><p>Castle groaned deep, his grief pulled out of him by her kiss, by the soft and beautiful regard of her lips infinitely tender against his, and he brought his hands up and cupped her face to sip at the nectar of her shy tongue.</p><p>His love was a bomb in his chest, perpetually detonating. </p><p>He forgot time, distance, degree, forgot his brother the woman the world anything. </p><p>Kate.</p><p>When her mouth eased and her tongue caressed his bottom lip, when the slow tide of her kiss began to ebb, he opened his eyes and found her watching him, coveting him with her gaze.</p><p>“I love you more for this,” he husked. His words were broken and inadequate, and he closed his eyes again and tilted his head to her forehead, breathing. “Thank you for being here. For entrusting me with your presence.”</p><p>He sounded ridiculous; the words were all wrong. He couldn’t make his tongue work now that she had slid her tongue across his. He couldn’t form coherence when she pressed her body to his and her arms were around his neck like he’d been away on a long journey and presumed dead.</p><p>“She has something,” Kate murmured. “She can show us where it is.”</p><p>He felt it like a current, a jolt that knocked him out of his mind-melted love and into the present once more. He did nothing to let it show on his face, that he had heard, but he reached into her back pocket and fingered the flash drive.</p><p>“Trust me still?” he whispered against her lips.</p><p>“Always.”</p><p>And that was a gift he didn’t deserve, from a woman who had nothing to give, and his arm tightened around her shoulders and he kissed her once just because her mouth was there and saying the most honest thing she knew even if it wasn’t entirely within her reach to keep it true.</p><p>He skimmed the drive out of her pocket and half-turned, still in Kate’s embrace, and slapped the jump drive onto Alex’s outstretched palm. “The master file,” he said, gravely. He had his own pockets loaded with things he wouldn’t reveal with his brother here. But Alex, despite all that he’d spouted on the way to the office, had been ashen the whole way back.</p><p>He closed his fingers around the drive, a brief look of despair. “You shouldn’t have given this to me,” he croaked.</p><p>“Why not?” Kate said, stepping only just enough apart that their chests no longer brushed with every touch.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Alex answered her. There wasn’t much in it, not a whole lot of understanding, but the emotion was real. Fucked up emotion, but it was there. “I’m - sorry for accusing you of - I don’t have the right to-”</p><p>He looked to Anne and the woman slinked around him like a snake, but Castle could see some of it had changed. The calculation was evident, the scales were on display, just not the fangs. He wondered what had gone down between her and Kate, for them to have been in this secluded, dark corner - the one spot Castle had dismissed as a rendezvous point because it was antithesis of everything Kate could handle.</p><p>“You don’t have the right,” Kate said quietly. “So maybe you should just trash it, Alex. For Anne’s sake. Your own.”</p><p>“I can’t to do that,” Alex said helplessly. “This is my life. Everything I know is this, this damn  - Black’s program. I was built - engineered - for this role. And what do I do when they come looking for me?”<br/>“Fight back.” Kate’s face was fierce. “Anne will teach you, and you’ll teach her.”</p><p>Was that compassion in her voice or carefully calculated manipulation? Beckett was very good, and Castle had seen those videos, had gone through his father’s personal files; he had seen things. She was very good.</p><p>“I’m not a fighter,” Alex muttered, but his eyes slid sideways to Anne. She was still clinging to him, but there was an element to it that Castle saw was orchestrated.</p><p>Just as he’d guessed in the park. She couldn’t quite keep her intentions under wraps. He didn’t think Alex saw it, but maybe he felt it.</p><p>“Annie, I’m not a fighter. You know I-”</p><p>“Cut the bullshit you wear as a mask,” Anne said suddenly, straightening up. “This girl is serious shit, Alex. She will fuck you over if you decide to go against her. And we all know Richard is the mean machine. They’re made for each other. But you have a chance to save us. Are you’re going to simper?”</p><p>Alex’s face cleared, though Castle saw thunder behind it, that darker anger that Castle had always known was so damn difficult to pull from Alex but when it came. </p><p>Fuck.</p><p>He hooked his finger in Kate’s belt loop and tugged very slightly to pull her back. But Kate wasn’t stupid, and Alex must look just enough like John Black that she was already bristling even while she half-shielded herself at his hip.</p><p>That was good enough for him. “Alex, Anne is right. You’re either with us, or you’re against. And against isn’t a place you want to be-”</p><p>“She gouged out his eyes, Alex,” Anne hissed. A flick of her glance to Kate as if to say don’t ruin this. Kate must have said something, said the truth, but Anne was playing it up for damn sure. “She slit his throat so deep his head was severed from his body. You know what else she’s done. Are you really going to stand there and tell your brother and his bitch that you’re too weak to run and hide with me?”</p><p>Alex rounded on her, slapped her hard across the face the split second before Castle could snatch him by the wrist and haul him back. He managed to deflect most of the energy behind it, but her cheek was still red.</p><p>Only she looked fucking triumphant.</p><p>And Alex was a mess.</p><p>“Oh, God, oh, God, Annie-girl, I didn’t mean - I didn’t mean to - I never want to hurt you, I am so sorry. Of course I’ll run away with you. We’ll run away and hide from all of them. No one will ever hurt you. No one-”</p><p>Kate made a noise low in her throat and Castle glanced at her with the same astonished revulsion. She rolled her eyes and touched his forearm, danced closer to him to put her lips at his ear. “She knows where the elixir is. She wants Alex out of the way before she shows us. She’s playing him to get him on our side.”</p><p>“Battered girlfriend is a play?” he mused softly.</p><p>Kate’s eyes went flat. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”</p><p>Suddenly the montage played again before his eyes, the ways she’d had plays of her own, battered recruit, battered hostage, battered victim, battered mother. His horror rose in his gullet all the same, and he cupped her face and rubbed his thumb at her eyebrow.</p><p>“He deserved it,” Castle growled, that crooked place under his thumb.</p><p>Kate’s eyes closed and her body slumped. “He was only training me. I thought it was a test. I was so naive-”</p><p>“He was beating you with a whip. He deserved to die,” Castle hissed.</p><p>Kate’s eyes flared open. “Yes, but - you said you had Black’s training. You were beat too. You managed not to murder your-”</p><p>“That’s different.”</p><p>“Why? Because I’m a girl?”</p><p>“Because you were taken.”</p><p>“So were you,” Kate whispered. Her eyes gentled and her fingers came up and curled around his hand at her face. Her lips touched his palm. “Oh, sweetheart, love, so were you. How else do you think it’s possible that I can at all - that this makes any sense? How I feel when I’m with you.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Alex and Anne went back to talk over the proposition with Ben, and Colin picked them up as they made the trek back to Alex’s expensive place. Castle had texted him earlier and his brother would stay on the two, just keep things clear. </p><p>Eastman met them at the station, walked back with them as Castle filled the man in on what had gone down. At the apartment in Spanish Harlem, Eastman held Castle back from the front door, nodded for Kate to go ahead. She hesitated, frowning between them, and Eastman shook his head.</p><p>“Just guy talk. Have a few things to get off my chest.”</p><p>Castle braced himself, and Kate looked like she was going to protest, but Castle touched her waist and nudged a little. “Baby, the boys? It’s well past lunch.”</p><p>She blinked and her shoulders dropped. “I - yeah.” She glanced between him and Eastman and scowled. “I’ll know just by the look on his face if you hurt him.”<br/>And then she pushed through the front door and left him out in the hall with Eastman. Castle shrugged at the man, tried not to feel smug about it, and gestured for Mark to get on with it.</p><p>“Don’t be smug. She’s twenty-two. You’re a damn grown man.”</p><p>Castle huffed and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “Are we doing this again? Because-”</p><p>“No,” Eastman clipped. “We’re not. You just don’t need to be rubbing my nose in it. That’s what I’m saying.”</p><p>“How exactly do you want me to act here, Mark? Because if I keep my hands to myself, she’s going to get pissed at both of us-”</p><p>“No, shit, shut up. That’s not-” Eastman growled and scrubbed both hands down his face. “I only meant don’t look at me so fucking smugly. That’s all. But that’s not what I meant to talk to you about right now.”</p><p>“So? Lay it on me.”</p><p>“Less attitude, Richard.” Eastman glowered back at him, and Castle really did try. But he was kinda born this way. Eastman rolled his eyes and paced a short ways away, then came back to him. “You’re not staying in this apartment. On that fucking mattress on the floor? With the boys where? And the things you get up to?”</p><p>“What?” He stood up straighter, affronted by the look on Eastman’s face.</p><p>“Don’t look shocked. You two are not quiet, Richard. It’s what she needs to get through the day, fine. Fine. But you’re not doing that on that damn mattress in Spanish Harlem with two little boys-”</p><p>“Don’t get so damn uptight,” Castle growled. “And it’s not - like that. It’s not - the boys are too small to know-”</p><p>“Yes but while you’re rolling in the hay, where do they sleep? On the floor? You don’t even have blankets. Now, Carrie already called the Hyatt. She got two rooms together - side by side, and she intends the boys to stay with us. Give you - time - ah - together.”</p><p>Castle’s jaw dropped.</p><p>Eastman’s ears went red. Scarlet. The light from the hallway burned pink through his ears. That red. </p><p>Damn.</p><p>Eastman worked his shoulders. “So. Are we agreed? Colin is out there keeping watch over Alex and Anne. I’ll relieve him. Carrie has the boys in the room beside yours, and you take care of Katie.”</p><p>Castle took in a ragged breath, the weight of things he’d stolen from his father’s office in his pockets. It was - actually - an alluring proposal. Time alone with Kate. Time alone with her, to treat her like she deserved.</p><p>“She’ll have to - she’ll need to nurse them after dinner,” Castle said quietly. “And put them to bed herself. That’s - important for her. I - ah - I want to tell them good night as well. It’s - I’m their father.”</p><p>Eastman didn’t laugh in his face. Or even roll his eyes. Which Castle had been expecting. Instead Eastman reached in and gripped the back of his neck, squeezed a little more roughly than maybe was necessary. “You don’t have to be ashamed of that, Richard. Best part of you, how you’ve owned those boys. Don’t ever be ashamed of loving them.”</p><p>Castle grit his teeth, not sure how to take that, not sure what it meant for the tension between them and the faint rudeness he usually put out there when it came to Eastman.</p><p>“Son, it’ll be work. Raised by a man like him, there’s - a kind of brainwashing that goes on when you take a boy and teach him your own ways. But it’s - I can see you fighting it, I can see you making your own path with those boys. And that’s - ah, shit, son, don’t look like that. That’s good enough for me.” A slow blink of Eastman’s eyes. “For now.”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” Castle said roughly, working his jaw. He was finding it difficult to breathe, like his chest was too tight. “Yes, sir, a different path.”</p><p>“Ah, hell, son. Get in there. Check-in is at three.”</p><p>-----</p><p>“Hey, baby, they’re gonna be fine,” Castle murmured, taking her face in his hands and turning her to look at him. It took a moment for her eyes to follow, and she sighed, sinking into him so that he had to open his arms and catch her. “You want to go inside now?”</p><p>She nodded and slid out from his arms, pulling her keycard from her back pocket and sliding it into the lock. He watched her a moment, but the hotel was muffled and quiet, and so was Kate.</p><p>She opened the door for them and he followed her inside, touching her lower back briefly, flipping the privacy bar when the door closed behind them. Kate glanced to the wall that served as the only divider between them and the boys they had just put to sleep in Carrie’s room.</p><p>“They’re usually upstairs,” she murmured. “Why is this so hard?”</p><p>“They’re behind a locked door. We have to knock to get inside,” he said carefully. It had been the first thing that had come to mind when Eastman and Carrie had set this up.</p><p>“Oh.” Her face fell, and she sank to the king-sized bed. </p><p>Castle chewed on his lower lip and then held up a finger. “Wait right here.”</p><p>Kate let out a little noise as the door swung shut behind him, but he headed to the door beside their own and knocked softly. Carrie opened it in seconds and looked surprised. “Something wrong?”</p><p>“Kate can’t have them behind a locked door. You have two keycards-”</p><p>“Oh!” Carrie put a hand to her chest. “Hang on, hang on. I mean to give you guys one anyway, and I just forgot. One second, Rick. It’s by the table.”</p><p>She held the door out for him, but he only came partway through, just over the threshold. He could see James and Wyatt curled up on the full-sized bed beside Carrie’s rumpled one, the pillows placed around them in a protective ring.</p><p>Carrie came back with the keycard, held it out with a flush to her cheeks. “Mark actually thought of it, and I should have remembered. I’m so sorry.”</p><p>“We won’t come in,” he told her. “It’s not like we’ll be sneaking through to touch them or something. They have their own bedroom at our place, but it’s just the lock.”</p><p>“I know,” Carrie said softly. “Go. Get that back to her.”</p><p>Castle nodded and backed out slowly, one last look at his sons, and then he hurried back to their room.</p><p>Ah. Damn. He didn’t take his keycard. </p><p>Castle knocked on their door with a shake of his head and Kate opened it, lips twitching.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I forgot our keycard. But I got Carrie’s.” He held it up and wriggled his eyebrows and she actually laughed, a gasp of a laugh. But she reached out and plucked the card from his fingers and then wrapped her fist in the bottom of his shirt and dragged him inside.</p><p>“You know just what to do,” she murmured. The door slammed shut and Castle half-turned, flipped the privacy bar again, never taking his eyes off her.</p><p>“I try,” he said softly. “You make it easy.”</p><p>“That’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told,” she said, smoothing his shirt out against his hip.</p><p>“No, honey. Easy when it comes to you. Never wanted to try to for anyone or anything before. Not like this.”</p><p>She tilted her head, but her fingers tucked at his waistband, tugging a little. “You wanna try a little something now?”</p><p>“No need to try,” he smiled back, tipping his body to hers. Her breasts brushed his chest. Tantalizing. He lifted his hand and touched her neck, caressing. “Just gonna do exactly what I want to you, baby.”</p><p>She grinned back and nuzzled in closer, her hair against his chin, the scent of her rising up to him. She fumbled at the button of his pants, popped it open. “What are you going to do?”</p><p>He caught her hand and squeezed, moved to the button of her jeans, and then her zipper while she watched him with half-lidded eyes. He touched her stomach and caressed the soft skin there, slipped in under her panties.</p><p>“Oh.” She blinked slowly and looked down at his hand. “I like that.”</p><p>He grinned and stepped into her, cupping the back of her neck so he could slide his other hand deeper into her pants. She came up on her toes with a little throaty noise, gripping his arms. </p><p>“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “That’s - so good.”</p><p>She was hot and close and tight between her legs. “You feel like silk,” he said against her cheek. She mewled and her head came back against the grip her had at her nape, and he was practically holding her up now, his fingers gliding into her wetness.</p><p>“How do you - always know exactly how to touch?” she husked.</p><p>“You make it easy,” he told her, kissing her cheek with an open mouth, lingering there, lingering between her legs. “How wet you are for me.”</p><p>“Just thinking about you,” she breathed. “Sometimes - sometimes I go to the bathroom so I can touch myself. But it’s never any good. It doesn’t do anything at all to help.”</p><p>“Oh, really?” he growled, pressing up hard against her clit.</p><p>She gasped and came up on her toes again. Her hands gripped him, her lips chafed his jaw and she groaned. He felt her body trembling and he gave her a rhythm, rubbing through her fold and hitting her clit with the wide base of his fingers. She squeaked and stopped breathing for an instant, and then her throat arched and her body went rigid, and she came with a choked cry.</p><p>Castle slid his fingers out of her sex and up against her stomach, divesting her of her shirt as he went. She was liquid and loose for an instant, still caught in the tidal wave, and then her tension returned and her eyes opened.</p><p>“In a hurry?” she murmured.</p><p>“Thought we could take a bath,” he hummed, hands dropping to her waist and rising up again. He thumbed under the band of her bra and popped open the clasp. She laughed, silent round mouth, her eyes sparking.</p><p>He smirked and reached in to cup her breasts, loosening them from her bra so he could squeeze. She growled and wriggled her shoulders, shucked the bra herself. He leaned in and kissed her nipples, pressing her breasts together so he could suck them both into his mouth at once.</p><p>She groaned and clung to his arms, her knees knocking into his thighs. He lifted his head and banded an arm at her back, brought her in against him so he could push her jeans down her hips.</p><p>“You haven’t even started the water,” she told him, but she was helping him, shifting her feet and bucking her hips. </p><p>“Let’s remedy that. Come with me?”</p><p>“I already came,” she said, lifting her head and grinning at him.</p><p>“You won’t be coming only once,” he said gravely, narrowing his eyes at her.</p><p>“I better not be,” she snorted. She stepped out of her jeans on he own and dragged him towards the bathroom with her. “Bath. I want to undress you while the water is running.”</p><p>“I could be up for that.”</p><p>Kate stopped suddenly and he nearly ran into her, but she turned and palmed his crotch, cupping him through his pants. “I think that’s already accomplished.”</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Chapter 23</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kate stepped into the jacuzzi bath alone, the water hot and bubbling around her calves. She glanced back but Castle had pushed her on ahead of him, wanting to put away his weapon. She'd made a remark about where he could put it and the heat in his eyes, the fire that had burst behind that casual blue - she still felt that all over her.</p><p>But he was truly gone. Somewhere in the bedroom emptying his pockets of all his fun toys, those little pieces of metal and wire and sticks he collected like a little boy, only his were for dark purposes, not for the joy of it.</p><p>Well, maybe. Did he find joy in it?</p><p>She wasn't sure he did. </p><p>Kate watched the water frothing around her knees now and took the last step down. The tub was massive, and as she sank to the seat ledge that filled one side, the water so hot it took her breath away.</p><p>When had she last sat down in a hot jacuzzi bath while the jets roared and drowned out the world? She couldn't actually remember. Not much call for it in high school, and maybe she had on that Mock Trial trip she'd taken to DC with the team, maybe she had indulged then at the hotel where the conference had taken place. </p><p>It was loud but it was quiet, and her body was pink and burning and she couldn't keep herself upright. She just sank back against the sloped side and closed her eyes and things began to swirl and drift and eddy in her head as they did around her body.</p><p>"Hey."</p><p>She opened her eyes, realized it was quite possible she had fallen asleep, her cheek mashed into the corner. Castle was grinning at her, his chin propped on the back of his hand, arms on the side of the tub. She swallowed past the thick feeling in her throat, lifted her hand to trail wet fingers along his forearm. "Hey."</p><p>"You're tired," he murmured.</p><p>"Not too."</p><p>"Mm, we can keep it at this nice pace," he said softly, kissing her knuckle when her perusal trailed under his mouth. </p><p>"Nice is boring," she sighed. "And I'm not nice."</p><p>"You could be right."</p><p>She laughed, surprised, a little aroused, a little indignant - but he was smiling that lazy predator smile. "You look like a great shaggy lion."</p><p>His turn to laugh, and the bright sky in his eyes made her nipples burn. She cupped the side of his face and drew water across his smile. </p><p>"A lion," he said slowly. "How's that?"</p><p>"I don't know. You could eat me up."</p><p>The sky turned dark, feral, and she shivered, curling her fingers at his ear and tugging. He rose to his feet and she saw he was already naked, and erect, and her body tightened everywhere, rocking in the bath water with something she couldn't control. Like she was already possessed.</p><p>"I could most definitely eat you up," he said. "Make room, love."</p><p>She drew her knees up to her chest and stepped into the tub, skipping the steps entirely to sink down across from her.  She hadn't expected that, to be face to face with him instead of back to chest, but it was strangely erotic, as if she were on display. No bubbles to hide under in a jacuzzi bath.</p><p>Castle reached forward and closed his broad hands around her ankles, tugged. She shivered again despite the heat of the water, feeling her legs be pried open, sliding through the bath and over his thighs, his palms skimming up and up.</p><p>She pressed back hard into the sloped side, arching her hips up into his touch. He pushed her back down into the water and the friction of one of the jets hit her just right. Kate cried out, clamping down inside, and something skittered through her body - not orgasm, maybe orgasm, she had no idea but it jangled all her nerves and made her skin alight.</p><p>Castle scooted in closer and her thighs widened to accept him, her eyes opening and coming back down to see his face. How intent he was on her, no longer lazy and willing to let her come to him. Intent, devouring. He leaned in over her and she felt her sex grazed by the bend of his stomach and then his mouth touched her sternum. </p><p>Kate groaned, feeling the weirdly cool lick of his tongue, hearing the roar of the jets and her own heartbeat in her head. She felt her body rocking against him, that elusive press of his hard abs where she needed something, something, and the tickle of churning water.</p><p>His mouth burned. His jaw burned. He nuzzled his face into her breasts and she gripped his back and his head and held on, alive alive alive.</p><p>His teeth caught her nipple and she screamed, a short cry that startled them both, and his head came up and his eyes pierced hers and she felt embarrassed but not at all willing to stop, and she pressed on the back of his neck and tried to bring him back to her.</p><p>"I'm fine, fine," she breathed. "Overstimulated. Just - keep going."</p><p>"I could you open in front of the jets and then you'd really scream," he gruffed.</p><p>She groaned, hips bucking as just the thought, but she tightened her knees at his ribs and didn't want to give this up either. </p><p>"Or I could line us up and fuck you right now," he growled.</p><p>"Oh please." Her whole body wracked with shudders, hips arching up, squeezing around him. Needing him, needing hard, his body forcing her open- </p><p>He thrust and she cried out. Castle pressed her legs up, pushing on the back of her thighs as he laid full over her. Her spine popped and her shoulders ground against the side of the tub, but she hooked her ankles at the back of his neck and angled her hips and-</p><p>Oh God.</p><p>She screamed when he thrust again, so deep, so deep she was being split open. She thrashed her head and came up to meet him, rewarded with that powerful, vibrating groan in his chest. She had to brace one hand at the bottom of the tub, and he dug an arm behind her back and then fuck.</p><p>She shattered apart, contracting around the steel rod of his cock, so hard and fierce that it cramped and tightened and made her scream. </p><p>And yet his hips kept moving, rutting himself deeper and deeper. Impossibly deeper, hitting every last raw, wounded place until she was sobbing his name and coming again, drawing his orgasm out of him with the pureness of her need, and he roared as he spilled himself, spent himself, made them one.</p><p>-----</p><p>She was sobbing.</p><p>Even when it was over, she wouldn't let go of him, wouldn't release him, though his cock had deflated and slid out from her, though she was barely above the water line. She was sobbing into his neck, great gulping breaths and ragged crying exhales, and he gripped her harder and tighter and did his best to keep her from drowning.</p><p>He didn't try to placate, didn't try to quiet her. She needed to sob, needed oblivion afterwards, and he wasn't offended. He knew what it was, the surfeit of emotion that she just had no functioning way to cope with. She always broke on the biggest orgasms and he didn't mind at all holding her together until she could again.</p><p>He did finally get a shoulder into the sloped side of the tub and bring one of her legs down, concerned about pulling a muscle or tendon in her groin - that wouldn't do at all (because she would fuck him through that too and he still wasn't adroit at finding ways to redirect). She shuddered and hiccuped and dug her nails into his back, bright stings of pain as the hot water hit his skin. He rolled them and she shivered violently as her shoulder left the water, but he kept them as submerged as he could, wrapping himself around her and putting her head against his cheek, highest point above the water line.</p><p>When it was more juddering sighs than sobs, when the wetness slicked between them was frothing water and diluted arousal, Castle curled his arm around her neck and softly kissed whatever skin he came to, trailing his lips through her hair and to her ear, her jaw, pressing love into her body. Something in her loosened, and she nudged down against his neck, so he turned to his back to give her enough height to keep her face out of the water.</p><p>He stroked her back with a broad hand, combing tangles out of her hair and letting it drift and float like a mermaid in the water. He still had in his mind's eye the wild and dissociative Beckett fighting for her life, and the woman who had come up to him on the subway platform so joyfully grateful he was there. And below his fingers were the very places where the whip had cracked against her skin, licked pain and sliced open her back because she hadn't been quite fast enough. Or because she'd been biding her time.</p><p>This woman. This amazing, strong woman who had endured trauma after trauma, tragedy and horror, and here she was in his arms finding something like pleasure and joy and love. He hoped. He knew. She found love in him, with him, even if everything was so scattered and messy that it was impossible to handle. She was weak and limp against his chest when he shifted them upright, but she drew in a knee and curled an arm in at his chest and sighed.</p><p>"With me?" he murmured.</p><p>She hummed and stroked a finger at his ribs.</p><p>"Pretty fucking impressive sex," he said.</p><p>She laughed. Laughed. God, it was beautiful, she was beautiful, his heart was breaking open.</p><p>"You always know what to say," she murmured, turning into him and kissing his pec. </p><p>"That was not exactly the height of romanticism," he muttered, cupping the back of her head and feeling his cock stir at her thigh as she moved.</p><p>"It was to me," she sighed. </p><p>"Hell, we gotta raise your standards here, Becks."</p><p>"Why? If it's good enough for me, then-"</p><p>"It's not for me. What if I want to be wined and dined and shown a little consideration? A little foreplay?" he teased.</p><p>Kate grumbled against his chest and lifted her head - first time she'd let him see her face since the crying - and though she had streaks of mascara under her eyes, she looked startlingly hot, like a sultry porn star. "A little foreplay?" she scoffed. Her knee shifted higher and he grunted, hips jerking as she found him with her hand. "Baby, you need zero foreplay."</p><p>He groaned and reveled in her touch, the slow stroke around his balls and the way she played with his cock in the water. He had to close his eyes, remember to breathe.</p><p>"See?" she whispered. "Who needs romanticism when the sex is just this damn good?"</p><p>She did. She needed it, but fuck was it difficult to keep in mind when she touched him. Ah, hell, he was going to have to have her again. Fuck. "Either I - come inside you or I'll ruin the bath and we'll have to get out," he managed tightly.</p><p>She shifted over him suddenly, rising up in the bath so the water trailed over her breasts and down her back and touched him everywhere. "My turn," she said, a sensational and wicked set to her lips. "I'm not ready to get out yet."</p><p>"Damn," he breathed, gripping her hips as she rubbed her open sex against him. His heart was thundering for her. "Oh, love, the way you play."</p><p>"Good?"</p><p>"Good. Good. I - fuck me, you're gonna have to hurry this up. Romantic next time."</p><p>She laughed and leaned in over him. Touched him. Just right, just right, and he pushed his hips up to help and suddenly - oh, hell, oh God, yes - he couldn't stop. Couldn't. So damn tight and wet and gripping him and those noises she made and the drag of her breasts against his chest and the water sloshing and jets and she between them and did that swivel and grind-</p><p>He exploded, bursting to life inside her.</p><p>-----</p><p>She was laughing as he came back, a kind of breathless sound that caught between them and thrummed under the water. Like she couldn’t control it. Like the jet were too much or his fingers digging into her thighs for dear life or whatever it was. Life. Castle wasn’t sure laughter was much better than crying, but she seemed happier, or at least able to smile as it took over.</p><p>“Oh,” she gasped, pushing upright over him with her hands fluttering at his stomach. “Oh, fun.”</p><p>“Fun?” he husked.</p><p>“You,” she hummed and danced her fingers along his belly button. His cock twitched inside her and she hiccuped on a wide-eyed startle, her laughter beginning to die out but not going quietly. “You. Just. Oh. How - how long before you can go again because, wow, that’s - you’re impressive already.”</p><p>He groaned and grabbed for one of her wrists, hooked his other arm low at her back, tried to pull her down to him again. “Give me a second to get my head in the game after that.”</p><p>She resisted, her teeth white in the dazzling over head, and she rocked her hips like she was riding him. “Will it stay in? Your-” She giggled and lifted an eyebrow. “-joystick?”</p><p>“What the everloving fuck, woman.”</p><p>She laughed and spilled down to his chest again, catching herself with the helplessness of it. He had decided - he wanted her laughing all the time, even hysterically, if this was how she felt, how she touched him, how she loved.</p><p>“You don’t like joystick?”</p><p>“Decidedly not. And it won’t stay in as you put it because your body naturally pushes it out. Unless it’s - ah-”</p><p>“Hard,” she smiled, cat-ate-the-canary as she perched over him, elbows pressed hard into his chest. “You won’t come out if you’re hard. But. If I stay very still. If I’m careful.” She leaned in and touched her lips to his mouth, softly. “If I’m patient. I can keep you.”</p><p>His heart flipped over. “Yeah. Until I can take you again.”</p><p>“Until your joystick stiffens up for me.” She wriggled her hips a little and he grunted. “Hm, well, not long now. Honestly, I could probably fuck myself against you and-”</p><p>“Well, fuck,” he growled. “Basically there right now. What did you have in mind?”</p><p>“No, no,” she purred. “I wanna see how long I can hold you in.” She kissed him again, though just like before, her lips were light and soft. “Rod?”</p><p>“Oh, hell, Beckett. This isn’t a-”</p><p>She giggled and her forehead touched his as she bowed over him. “What about member? Your throbbing member? Well, almost. Not quite there.”</p><p>He grunted and rolled his eyes, disturbed by how her ridiculous words made him actually throb. “Maybe if I were a pirate, you could call it a throbbing member.”</p><p>“Baby, I think you gave yourself up a little there. Pirate, huh? Either you’ve read romance novels or-”</p><p>“No,” he huffed. “I have not read romance novels. I am culturally aware for my job, Beckett.”</p><p>“Uh-huh. I’m sure that’s all it is.”</p><p>“Don’t you dare call it a throbbing member.”</p><p>Kate kissed her smirk against his scowl, rubbing her fingers along his jaw, back and forth in that way that really did something to him. “Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m still kinda partial to joystick.”</p><p>“Fuck. I’m so fucking doomed. I am doomed, because every damn word you say makes me sit up and pay attention.”</p><p>“Sit up and pay-” She startled as she understood, a kind of delicious laugh falling out of her beautiful open mouth. And then she narrowed her eyes at him in a seductive, mature way that she shouldn’t at all have. She came in close, and he saw her tongue move as she said it. “Cock.” </p><p>He gripped the wet knot of her hair at her neck and tried to angle her mouth in for more, but she squirmed and pulled back from him, shook him off. </p><p>“You like that one,” she murmured. “Cock.”</p><p>“I like your mouth around it,” he said, insinuating as well as being truthful.</p><p>“I like my mouth around it too,” she said prettily. “But you know what’s interesting? All these little quivers you have.”</p><p>“What?” he grunted.</p><p>“You - shiver and twitch whenever I come up with a new one. Even throbbing member makes you - oh, yes, just like that, baby.”</p><p>He was, actually, throbbing. “Because listening to you talk makes me hard.” Listening to her happy.</p><p>She hummed and kissed him again, smiling, as if it was a reward. “I find that very interesting,” she said, lips quirking as her fingers traced little designs across his chest. </p><p>He wondered how open her lines of communication had been with previous partners - fuck, what partners? She’d had no partners; she’d had high school boys coming in her hands.</p><p>“I always thought penis sounded like the limp thing little boys have. Cock sounds so much more impressive. Yours is definitely a cock.”</p><p>Hell. She talked like his twitching and hardening inside her was some new discovery, and of course it was. He was the only man to have been inside her, the only man in her wet, tight heat. Oh, fuck.</p><p>“Mm, there we go, baby, we made it,” she husked. “You’re so hard now. I can feel how you fill me, pressing me open.”</p><p>“You’re a damn wet dream,” he groaned, twitching in earnest now, desperate to fuck her again, wanting to be good, be still, until she’d had her fun.</p><p>“And you’re always willing,” she whispered. And then, thank God, her hips began to move, her hands braced on the sloped side of the bathtub near his head. Her pace was agonizing, riding his cock in slow grinds. Her mouth open, tongue darting out, a touch on his bottom lip. “Always wanting. And so hot. Burn for you, love. I’m up in flames every time you touch me. All I want is this, this Castle, this, oh my God-”</p><p>She moaned and came in a shuddering wave, so fucking hot over him, so damn hot, and he grit his teeth and endured so he could watch, memorize every movement and roll. She gasped at the highest peak and arched, her eyes snapping to his as if snared, and he took up her rhythm to keep it steady.</p><p>“Cas-castle,” she whispered. Her lashes fluttered. Her body stiffened. Her nails dug into his shoulder and she keened-</p><p>Her second orgasm was like fireworks - exploding hard and sharp inside her but also screaming through him. Their connection burst wide open so that his skin felt flayed, his guts abraded. He couldn’t hold on, couldn’t stop, couldn’t keep control.</p><p>He reared up, water sloshing wildly, gripped her hips to keep her flush, and he fucked her. Wild, jerky thrusts of his groin. His mouth scraping her neck. Her body hot and milking him, contractions fierce, her cries in his ear, throbbing inside her, fuck, fuck, fuck-</p><p>He roared as he came, crushing her against him, and everything - everything - oh, God, please - everything he was poured inside her.</p><p>-----</p><p>She was static electricity.</p><p>Sparks and jolts across her skin. Bad for water. No, no, bad in water. With. With water. Conducted.</p><p>Conducted very nicely. Beautifully. All sparks and colors.</p><p>“Am I dead?” he husked.</p><p>She grunted in assent, peeled open her eyes to find him, something of him. Sensory overload. Had to close her eyes. Felt good against his skin. Warm. He was very warm.</p><p>“You dead?”</p><p>“Could be,” she answered. The jets were roaring all over her, all around her body, tickling and bubbling. It was too much. Too much. All of the sudden, everything was too much.</p><p>She squirmed and his hands came up to press at her shoulders and her breath caught.</p><p>“Can I turn these off?” she whispered.</p><p>“Course, honey.”</p><p>She fumbled to lift herself up, sliding her hand along the side of the tub until she found the round button, pushed it. The jets ceased and she let out a breath, slumped back to his chest, closing her eyes again.</p><p>Breathing.</p><p>Breathing still.</p><p>His hands pressed and his body rose up under her, just a little, as if he wanted to feel all of her weight against him. Her thighs ached on either side of his hips. Ached really good.</p><p>“Can I carry you out?” he murmured against the top of her head.</p><p>“Out?”</p><p>“To bed. Things I want to do with you need a bed for.”</p><p>She roused, lifting her head. “I can walk.”</p><p>“I really hope not,” he muttered. “After that, you should be at least walking funny.”</p><p>She huffed, a confusion through her laughter. “Walking funny why?”</p><p>His fingers slicked between her legs and touched, and she jerked, feeling raw there, abraded. “Oh, I-” She shivered and drew her knees in tight to his ribs. “I bet I could walk anyway.”</p><p>“But I want to carry you,” he whined, teeth scraping her jaw. “Pretend for me. Pretend you’re so fucked, you can’t walk straight, you need me to-”<br/>She laughed and flicked his nipple, made him grunt. She pushed off his chest and slid back on his thighs, but he raised his knees really fast and trapped her. </p><p>She narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t really want me to fake it, do you?”</p><p>Castle growled and dropped his knees, the water slapping high and washing up her spine. She smirked and shifted to one side, slid off his lap, shivering as the cool air caressed her shoulders while the heated water fondled her sex.</p><p>Well, and his fingers too. She lifted an eyebrow and he gave her an innocent look, but his fingers were playing with her.</p><p>“Rick,” she said slowly, stroking a hand down his chest and cupping his balls. “Playing with fire, honey.”</p><p>He growled and flexed, body rippling, his eyes on her. “I love your fire.”</p><p>She leaned in and touched her mouth to his. I like your mouth around it. She did too and she wanted to do that to him, but he was right. Required a bed. “Too bad,” she sighed. “Really love this water.”</p><p>“Wait,” he said, catching her hand. “You love the bath?”</p><p>She froze.</p><p>“I love you in the bath, baby. Stay. Take a bath with me so I can touch you everywhere.”</p><p>Kate blinked, felt her body rouse to him, breasts heavy, the place between her legs practically weeping for him.</p><p>His fingers cupped her there, teasing between her legs and he grinned. “Not long exactly,” he murmured, “because you’re leaking me, honey.”</p><p>“I’m... what?” she said, breathless. Nipples were tingling. His fingers played at her, like he was scratching a pet. </p><p>“We’ve fucked so much that my come is running out of you.”</p><p>Her eyes startled open and she glanced down, widening her thighs to see the milky thread in the water. “Oh.” His fingers curled and caught the spill of his seed, and then his fingers slipped up inside her. She moaned and rose to her knees, feeling him. “My - my cup runneth over.”</p><p>“Lie down with me in the bath, sweetheart.” He beckoned. Inside her. Beckoned his fingers so they curled up, and she whimpered, swaying, before she crashed against his chest.</p><p>His free arm banded across her back and he kissed her, languid, like his fingers weren’t stroking inside her. Before she could catch up, she was dissolving into his skin, shivers and strokes of feeling inside her.</p><p>“That’s it, baby, just like that.”</p><p>“Wha-what are you doing to me?” she whimpered. Her body was flush, poised, falling - only to be buoyed up again, floating on that ocean of pleasure.</p><p>“Tantric,” he whispered. “All plateaus, steady, never-ending plateaus. You feel - everything. Tantric, sweetheart. All night if you want.”</p><p>She groaned, caught, rippling, carried away.</p><p>-----</p><p>He stroked and played and petted, caressed when he had to back off, rubbed when he needed to bring her up. She was breathing heavy, curled limp into his side, her mouth open at his chest and her breath skirting the damp place where the water lapped up the ladder of his ribs.</p><p>His own cock bobbed in the water, firm again, not quite full-throttle, but he had narrowed his focus to only Kate, to the sensation of her sensation, using their connection to funnel all of his own arousal back inside her.</p><p>She had gone from moans to heavy breathing to this - this exploration of the reaches of her body’s capability for pleasure. She was flexible and up for it, of course she was, but now he timed her responses and used his knowledge of their orgasm denial to bring her along the thin edge of arousal.</p><p>She had stopped touching him by now, slack in her own spun-web of feeling, and he kept her drifting, enjoying the way he could mold her and reform her, touch her, dizzy her.</p><p>He had her lying in the vee of his legs, her own legs spread wide and hooked over his knees. He palmed her inside thighs and dragged his mouth against her shoulder, over and over, touching and touching again, easing her legs wider, stretching those inner muscles as her hips bumped in the air.</p><p>Water rocked over them, eddies and wakes, and the ends of her hair were soaked while the strands under his chin were drying and kinking up. Her breasts were swollen and lush, overripe. He cupped them, one in each hand, kneading thickened flesh and easing the tight buds of her nipples until they too were pliant and stretched.</p><p>It was not much different from a deep massage, but he focused his attention on her erogenous zones, discovering a new one every time he shifted his hands. She liked her legs spread, she loved his cock bumping against the crease of her ass. She liked his fingers circling her wrists and pressing her arms over her head so that she hung on to his neck. She loved his mouth at her ear and his words and how he described what he was doing to her.</p><p>She loved his words. He could probably talk her right over the cliff into orgasm.</p><p>But he wanted her kittenish and pettable for a while yet. And he knew he needed to break one last orgasm from her body, surprise her into it, so that she could sleep hard enough not to dream.</p><p>Not to need restraints.</p><p>When she was liquid over his body, like pure drizzled honey in the heat of summer, he slowly drew her arms down and closed her thighs together. She barely moved, her breathing even once more, deep, her eyelids heavy but not shut. She was awake, she was very much with him, but hellfire and damnation had gone from her.</p><p>Castle shifted forward and drew his arm under her knees, the other banding at her lower back, and he rose to his feet inside the tub. She didn’t even open her mouth, she merely nuzzled her nose in under his jaw and licked his throat.</p><p>He stepped carefully up the jacuzzi steps and out onto the bath mat, her skin so overheated that she didn’t even shiver. The pink flush stayed at her breasts and her eyes tracked a lazy perusal of his face and down his chest to the contour of his bicep.</p><p>He walked her into the main room and lowered her to the bed, pulled down the feather comforter and sheets out from under her. He brushed the hair back from her face and pressed his mouth against hers, more touch than kiss, and then he straightened up and moved to clean up the bathroom.</p><p>He had to drop towels on the floor to mop up the water that had sloshed overboard, and he pushed them along with his feet while he pulled the plug on the bath. He shoved the soaked towels into a corner and grabbed two fresh ones, came back into the bedroom to find her spread eagle in the middle of the bed, more than a little blissed out, and her breasts sloped but nipples peaked at attention.</p><p>He crawled into bed with her and spread towels out over her body, briskly rubbing her down so he didn’t have to keep her covered. She cooperated mildly, rolled in bed to press her breasts against his chest.</p><p>He tweaked a nipple and the flush deepened, her mouth opened as if to receive, but she barely moved. No jerk of her hips, no groan, no flash in her eyes. He had found that perfect state of tantric pleasure, reception with no build-up, every action discharged by the bloom of nirvana through her body, under her skin, in her blood.</p><p>They could make out for hours like this. </p><p>Castle leaned in and kissed her, fingers tunneling in her hair, rolling forward to press his body against hers. She hugged him around the neck and explored his mouth with her tongue, lazy, accepting, willing to lead even though they were only meandering.</p><p>He stroked her back and her ass. Skimmed his fingers between her cheeks and circled the so soft skin at her anus. He dipped into her fresh wetness, the heavy cream of her silk, listening to the sounds their bodies made together.</p><p>When she was hot and focused on his mouth, when she was finding clever new ways to use her tongue, he backed off, hands at her shoulders, in her hair, letting the kiss deepen as she called for it, losing them both in the sensation of meeting.</p><p>Her intensity never slaked, but her desperation winnowed, fell away. She gazed up at him with lust-soaked eyes, filled to the brim with feeling, and he caressed her hair and lifted up.</p><p>“I found some things for you,” he said, the words falling out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying. “I put them in my pockets. I have it all here for you.”</p><p>“Found things for me,” she echoed. Her fingers stroked up his back.</p><p>“In the office. In a safe hidden in the floor. Combination was-” Her mother’s date of death. He blinked and roused to sanity, felt her struggling to follow. “Easy to guess. I took everything he had and I brought it home to you.”</p><p>“What did he have?” she whispered.</p><p>He cupped her face and kissed her, suddenly so damn grateful he had spent an hour working her in the bathtub, plying her with pleasure like wine until she was drunk on it. </p><p>“Let me show you,” he said finally, and began to stand up from the bed.</p><p>“I love you naked,” she sighed softly, her fingers trailing and falling from his hip.</p><p>He loved her too. But he kept silent, continued on his mission.</p><p>Castle moved to the dresser and opened the top drawer, slowly withdrew the white handkerchief he’d wrapped her personal items in. He turned and put a knee into the mattress, knee-walked up to her with the handkerchief cupped in his palms. She dragged herself upright against the headboard and held out her hands, her lips parted and half-smiling.</p><p>The first thing to slink out of the handkerchief was her gold necklace, the loops falling and curling in her hands.</p><p>-----</p><p>Her heart stopped.</p><p>The gold necklace spilled out of his hands and into hers, and her whole world paused.</p><p>"Castle," she choked out, closing her fingers around it and clutching the necklace, gripping so hard she felt the pinch of those minute well-worked Chinese links.</p><p>"I found it." His face beamed; her heart flipped over and sank to her guts. "I found the necklace just like you said."</p><p>She pressed it against her stomach, feeling it like a blow.</p><p>"And this - all of this too. It was in an evidence bag but I thought that was - it was too impersonal, all of this in that plastic with the red stripe across the top and just - I didn't think you'd want to see it like that. Here, baby, look."</p><p>His hands tipped towards her and he unfolded the handkerchief, and she saw three things, three small items.</p><p>Her mother's. They were her mother's.</p><p>"Oh God," she croaked, staring into his hands. She untangled her tight grip and hesitated on her reach, flicked her eyes up to his face just to make sure, be sure it was there and him and it wouldn't be snatched back, and then she touched her mother's wedding ring.</p><p>Everything dissolved.</p><p>His hands never wavered, never drew back. She slid her thumb through the band and clenched a fist, staring at the ring, her tears tracking down her face in hopeless channels. </p><p>His palm tipped the rest of the items into one hand and then he touched her face, redirected her tears into the web of his thumb, over and over. She gathered the two others - the thin flip calendar that was always in her mother's purse, and the square of green silk from Chinatown, the flap open and the zipper undone.</p><p>It was empty, the collection of loose change gone, but it felt as worn and soft as her mother's skin, and her throat closed up.</p><p>Castle's hands fell to her knees and stayed, and she pressed the pocket calendar into the silk and couldn't open it. Couldn't look at her mother's cramped code, couldn't even start. If she looked, she would want to know, what did it say what secrets what was her mother trying to do in the world, and that was impossible. Her mother's chicken scratch had always been impossible.</p><p>"Kate?" he whispered, hope tenting the syllables of her name.</p><p>"Thank you," she mouthed, drawing her knees up and bowing her head over them. She felt her forehead settle against the backs of his hands where he still held on to her, and she let out a breath that felt ragged and unwhole.</p><p>The chain of her necklace began to warm against her skin, but the diamond in her mother's ring still had sharp points where the setting and the gem pricked her. She turned her head and laid her cheek at Castle's knuckles, closed her eyes.</p><p>She felt him leaning in, the pressure of his hands as he drew himself closer, and then his lips caressed her cheek, her ear, the wet line of her tears. "They were hers. I knew it. I knew you'd want to have them back."</p><p>She blinked and the tear clung to her bottom lid and then dashed over her nose and down to his fingers. He made a noise and pushed in, his hands lifting her head and his body suddenly pressed all around her, surrounding her. She was drawn into his lap with his arms like bands around her, his fingers in her hair and stroking her ear, and she laid her head against his shoulder and stayed.</p><p>He cradled her and she couldn't find it in her to move, to be other, to stop having him do so much, be so much. Her chin tilted down and she watched the shine of her mother's run in the golden light of the lamp, and the way the chain snaked and coiled. The ring didn't fit on her thumb, pushed in right under the line of her cuticle, but she couldn't seem to unfurl her fist and do anything with it.</p><p>"Can I put it on you?" he whispered, his voice deep, rumbling, but so soft. Hesitant for all his width and height and depth.</p><p>She lifted her head and stared at him. "My mother's wedding ring?" her voice cracked.</p><p>His face washed into stunned smudges of eyes and lips. "I - no. I wouldn't - the necklace. Do you want to wear it?" His arm came in between her breasts and his fingers petted at her collarbones. "Right here, where it belongs."</p><p>She was naked.</p><p>It suddenly struck her as erotic and dangerous, the way he touched her and how her body woke, like lamps were being lit one by one along the string of her nerves. Coming on. Burning.</p><p>"I want to wear it," she got out, breathless.</p><p>"Can I-?" he said, his fingers dusting down between her breasts and circling her upturned wrist.</p><p>"Please," she murmured, lifting her chin.</p><p>His hands were eager, and shaking a little as he lifted the chain from her palm and worked the clasp. He brought the links around her neck and she bowed her head, felt him brushing aside her hair and kissing the nob of her spine. Her skin shivered and he let a breath tickle her neck before he smoothed his fingers across the necklace and down her shoulder.</p><p>She lifted her head and used her free hand to touch the low-hanging loop of the chain, how it curled in the valley between her breasts. How often she had reached up to touch it and it had been gone, and now how strange to feel it again, and his body around hers, and the warmth once more.</p><p>His kiss came in under her ear and she shivered, closed her eyes to the sensation of him.</p><p>She worked blindly at the ring until it came off her thumb and then she pushed it down on her finger, on the only finger she knew it would fit, because her hands were exactly the same as her mother's, and she had tried on all of her mother's jewelry as a kid, a teen, every time her mother took her rings off to wash her hands or cook dinner or get ready for bed.</p><p>"Kate?" he whispered.</p><p>She opened her eyes and saw it on her hand, the wedding ring, and she glanced up at him. "I have to keep it safe."</p><p>"Of course," he said, nodding, but his eyes darted back to her left hand and the band on her ring finger. "It belongs there."</p><p>She shivered and curled her hand into a fist. "Makes it easier for - for the cover too. For when we have to go out there. No questions if I'm just-" She shrugged.</p><p>Castle seemed to rouse, as if he had been somewhere far away, and his eyes came up to finally connect with hers. "Yes. Exactly. That's what it is. Your mother's protection even now, covering you, keeping you safe." His hand came up and lightly touched her cheek, fell away again. "Will you wear it while we - can I touch you?"</p><p>"Touch me," she moaned, instantly flooded with heat, with sharp and bright arousal, as if it had been waiting all this time, hovering. "Castle, I need you-"</p><p>His hands gripped her hips and tugged her open over his lap. She groaned when he cupped her, fingers slicking through her heat, and her head pitched forward so she knocked into his chin with her cheek.</p><p>"Let me put this on the night stand," he murmured, his other hand circling her wrist. She released the calendar and silk purse to him and he shifted to lean over - and it spilled her right against his chest.</p><p>They both groaned, and his hands were immediately back on her, inside her, his mouth over hers and sealing their noises inside. She rocked and rode the thrust of his fingers, feeling dirty and whole again, feeling special. She cupped the side of his face and felt the warm band at his cheek and he rasped her name, eyes flaring wide to hers.</p><p>"Enough," she whimpered. "Enough, push inside me now."</p><p>He growled and clutched her inside thighs, one small warning of a kiss, and then thrust deep.</p><p>-----</p><p>She moaned and rode his cock, her body flush and overheated, mouth open, eyes fevered. He didn’t have to do much; she worked her body up and down over him, her knees digging into the mattress, her arms slung around his neck. She shuddered and gave him a wet kiss, missing his mouth, whimpering as he gave his hips an extra grind against her.</p><p>Her breasts abraded his chest as she moved. He coasted his hands around her hips and up her ribs, cupped those heavy globes and kneaded her flesh. She stuttered as she came down on his cock, stilled with him buried deep inside her, as if to better feel his hands, the torque of his fingers on her nipples.</p><p>She mewled and bowed her spine, a bright arch that thrust her breasts forward and had her hair spilling down her back. She gulped ragged breaths and thrust her pelvis into his, shuddering, so close, so very close he could practically see it stalking her.</p><p>The gold glittered in the low light.</p><p>He leaned in and touched his mouth over the necklace, licked in and around it, under it, rubbed his scratchy jawline against her skin. She called his name and clutched at him, inside and out, and he suckled at her breast, nipple and swollen skin, wet circles, the heaviness of her in his mouth.</p><p>She was intense, short thrusts of her hips, their groins humid and pressed together, her inside thighs quaking with effort and near-release.</p><p>So close. So far.</p><p>With his back against the headboard and his legs sprawled before him, with Kate doing all the work of leverage and motion, he couldn’t offer much to help her.</p><p>Except experience.</p><p>She was so close.</p><p>“Beckett,” he growled, lifted his head as he gripped her breasts. “Beckett, turn around. Up on your knees. You know what to do.”</p><p>Her head snapped down, eyes lasered on his. “Turn ar-” Her tongue darted out to her lip. “Oh, yes.” She shivered as she came off his cock, he groaned as the cool air licked over the wetness of her sex all over him. Kate put her back to him and he immediately squeezed her ass, spread her cheeks and kneaded the dimples at her waist, waited for her to find him.</p><p>She skimmed two fingers from his balls to his head and he barked a sharp noise and gripped her hips, tugging insistently. She angled him to her sex and tilted her hips and suddenly it was perfect.</p><p>She moaned as she sank down on him. His fierce cock scraped and pushed at her front wall, enough pressure to cause her to rock forward, hands planted on his thighs, a dirty and imperative rock of her hips. Trying to fuck herself on him.</p><p>He pushed his hands up her back and down again, up and down, giving her a slower rhythm, a chance to find that better pace. Stave it off a little while longer.</p><p>She followed him, elbows bending as if she needed to get lower, harder, deeper against him. Castle in turn pulled his knees up nearly to his chest to brace her, gripping her hipbones and beginning to guide her thrusts.</p><p>He bodily lifted her on her his cock and she whined, writhing over him to get back down. He planted his feet and thrust upward as she sank down again, and Kate keened. Her spine arched, bringing her against his chest, and now he reached between her breasts and held her against him, upright, slamming up inside her.</p><p>Higher. Tighter. </p><p>She was writhing with his every thrust, moaning when he withdrew. It was slow but teeth-rattling, and she dragged her nails up the back of his neck when he sucked on her pulse.</p><p>Castle gripped the necklace as it swayed between her breasts, clutched viciously when she rolled her hips. Her moan was throaty, raw, as if she’d been screaming all night, and her fingers gripped the hair at his nape, her breath in wild exhalations.</p><p>“Castle, please-”</p><p>He picked up his pace, using his grip on her necklace to keep her chained to him. His hips snapped, his heels grinding into the mattress, her body slick with sweat and pressing between their skins, trickling down to her ass and settling in his groin.</p><p>He began to fuck her roughly, necklace wrapped in his fist and strong, her body beating out its own pulse and pace, her fingers like claws at his neck and his forearm. She was screwed up tight, so fucking tight; she was beginning to grind her teeth and throw her head back on his shoulder.</p><p>She was shaking.</p><p>Castle skimmed his other hand from her hip and circled her navel. Kate cried out, stiffening.</p><p>“Open your eyes,” he growled at her ear. “Open your eyes and see what I do to you.”</p><p>Kate mewled, rolling her head against his shoulder and eventually getting there. Immediately, Castle  pushed his fingers between the red, wet lips of her sex. He groaned when he felt himself protruding from her, the place where they joined slick and hot. He caressed his own cock once, twice, addicted to the feeling of himself penetrating her, invading her, and then he began to drag her clit against him.</p><p>He thrust once.</p><p>She screamed and fell part, inchoate and breaking forward on her hands and knees, sobbing his name as she worked a dirty counterpart to his fucking.</p><p>-----</p><p>She felt him gather her back together, held against his chest and drawn down to the mattress. And then his palm wide over her stomach, low, and the slow, shallow strokes of his cock inside her.</p><p>Kate opened her eyes and dragged a hand to cover his, turned her face into his bicep where he cradled her neck. She kissed his skin over the muscle, opened her mouth and scraped her teeth as he made love to her from behind.</p><p>“You feel so good,” he husked at her neck. His lips were like silk. “Oh, God, you’re so tight.”</p><p>Kate nudged her hips back into his thrusts, the raw, massive feeling of him inside her filling her up. Her inside thighs were burning, the blood pounding too fast, her heart was still missing beats as it tried to catch up. Flickers of her orgasm still sparked and sputtered; she gasped for breath and clung to his arm where he held her against him. </p><p>“It’s so good like this,” he groaned. “How wet you are for me.”</p><p>She turned her head back to him, glanced a kiss off his chin. His mouth found hers and he sucked frantically on her tongue, making her moan. Her body filled to overflowing, and she felt the infinity loop of his whole being pouring inside her and her own flooding back into him.</p><p>He kissed her and he groped at her breasts and his cock pushed into her, and it was rocking, rocking, intense and singular. His hand fisted at her heart and her heart beat hard and she could taste sex in his mouth and smell the musk of them on their skin and it was happening again, it was going to happen, she was so tight and desperately-</p><p>Kate cried out, shuddering into an orgasm that hit her sideways. Castle bellowed into her shoulder and spilled hotly inside her body, soft, uncontrolled jerks of his hips as their bodies clashed and ground down to nothing.</p><p>When she was spent and broken open, the tear-tracks dry but the sweat only beginning to cool, she realized he had gripped the chain around her neck as if to hang on to her. The skin around her throat was painfully abraded, the sweat stinging with every breath, but it was real. It was how fiercely he wanted her.</p><p>Kate drew her knees up as his cock spilled out of her, but his own legs chased hers, kept her braced. She curled around his arm and nuzzled her head down into the dark cave of pillow and mattress. Castle came with her, pressing into her back and tucking his head close to hers. She shivered violently and tightened her hold on him, and he kissed behind her ear and pulled the covers over them.</p><p>Her eyelids were so heavy and the blankets settled over her body. She felt his thigh nudging between her knees and she drew a hand down to touch him. Castle sighed her name as if dreaming and fell more fully against her. </p><p>It was almost impossible to move.</p><p>And only then did the exhaustion finally conquer her.</p><p>-----</p><p>She fell asleep in the curve of his body, her length overmatched by his, and Castle kept a firm leash on the gaping well of neediness inside him. He only covered her, protected her. Shielded her. While she slept.</p><p>His fingers were still curled in a fist around the necklace between her breasts, and he could feel the regular pulse of her heart there. Her skin was chafed where it had rubbed as he had gripped it, but it didn't seem to bother her. In fact, Kate had her arm twined with his as if cuddling up to his fierce claim.</p><p>He hadn't been able to help himself, in the heat of the moment with the chain swinging between her breasts, but now that he was lucid and settled, he knew better.</p><p>But he wouldn't let go.</p><p>With his thigh pushed between her knees and his chest sealed to her back and her ass in the cradle of his hips, the blankets pulled up around them were suffocating, but she'd been shivering in her sleep. Even now, her toes were ice cold. </p><p>The sweat was nice though. Interesting feeling, his overheated body and hers slightly too cool. He wouldn't worry about it until tomorrow, after she had nursed and taken a bottle of pedialyte, replenished what they'd fucked out tonight. If she was still chilled then, if her hands were clammy as they'd been before, then he would make Alex sit down and do something about it.</p><p>He heaved a sigh and buried his nose in her neck. </p><p>He ought to make Alex sit down anyway. With Carrie and himself, and hash it out. Figure out everything. Every last detail. They way they had left things, he had a strong feeling Alex and Ben would attempt to close things down quietly, back out of projects one by one until the entire thing was finished. He had promised - he had made that promise to back them up with force, he and Colin and Eastman and Kate, their own unit. Force might look differently to Kate, but she had been right there with him, making those promises to have Alex's back if he did the right thing.</p><p>Alex would not be allowed to examine her. No. Never again. No matter what she-</p><p>No.</p><p>He swallowed roughly and felt the warm gold in his fist, felt even the thin wedding band on her finger where her hand curled around his wrist to keep him there. She was his. He had made his claim and she had bowed her head and accepted it, and then more - more - she had taken him inside her. He was hers. Whatever she needed from Alex, Castle would get it. And Anne. Anne had elixir; she knew where Saber and Black had stored elixir in a special vault, and they were so close now.</p><p>They were so close. He wouldn't lose her; he was not going to lose her.</p><p>It was going to be fine.</p><p>He took another breath.</p><p>Then why did it feel so out of control? </p><p>-----</p><p>Something dragged her up, bobbing to the surface of awareness. He was already awake when her eyes opened without her say. "Still awake?" she murmured, no filter when she was still so heavy with exhaustion.</p><p>"Go back to sleep," he breathed against her skin. She was lying under him, almost all the way under his body, so broad and wide and heavy.</p><p>"You're nice and warm," she mumbled.</p><p>"Sleep, honey, it's early yet." His fingers brushed through her hair at her temple and her eyes slipped shut.</p><p>"Feels good," she sighed.</p><p>"Yeah?" A flicker of his thumb over her eyebrow. "I can do this all night."</p><p>She hummed, not quite able to rise all the way up to amusement, but feeling something close. His fingers stroked and the tiredness was nice, like a pleasant ache, like the way it felt between her legs, the chafed skin of her thighs.</p><p>"Did you sleep at all?" she managed to ask. Felt strange on her back, but whatever sensation of falling was blocked by his body covering hers. "Am I your pillow?"</p><p>"Are you dreaming?" he whispered.</p><p>She slid her eyes open, lips turning up. "Maybe so."</p><p>He touched his lips to her eyebrow. "Good dreams then. Keep dreaming about me, baby."</p><p>"I'm sure I will," she mumbled, shifting to turn deeper into him, on her shoulder now. He rearranged his body around hers, and she found her cheek on his bicep, her cold nose pressed to his chest. Felt really good, surrounded, warm.</p><p>She might sleep again, she might actually fall back down. </p><p>Before it could take her, she managed to get an arm out from between them and sling it around his waist, her fingers falling into the impression of his spine.</p><p>He was humming. It sounded like a song she knew.</p><p>-----</p><p>“Come on, baby, almost nine. They stop serving breakfast.”</p><p>Kate blinked and struggled for awareness, yawned when it hit her, stretching her body out along the sheets. “You’re up?” He was standing over the bed, brushing her hair back from her face, and she batted away his hand. “Why didn’t you wake me in time?”</p><p>“I did,” he said, straightening up. He was buttoning the flap of his cargo pants and she realized he had all of his gear stashed away already. “You can still shower and make it down there for eggs and a yogurt.”</p><p>She reached out and snagged his pocket, tugged until his knee bent towards her. “Not for breakfast. In time for sex.”</p><p>His mouth opened, closed again.</p><p>She sat up in bed, letting the covers fall away, her breasts bare in the morning light. She caught him staring and reached up, tugged on his belt. “That’s too bad for you. You’ll have to get dressed all over again. Big waste of time. Might even have to shower again.”</p><p>“What?” he murmured, eyes drawing from her breasts to her face to her hand undoing his belt. “K-ate.”</p><p>“I don’t want fucking yogurt. I want your cock.”</p><p>“Shit.”</p><p>“And if you come in my mouth-”</p><p>“God damn it, Kate,” he growled, hands gripping hers. “I wasn’t trying to deprive you. I just - you need sleep no matter the elixir.”</p><p>“I need you,” she said, hating when her voice cracked. She rose to her knees in the bed and squirmed her fingers until she managed to break free of his hold and loosen his zipper. “I need you to need me too-”</p><p>“I do need you,” he croaked, arms banding around her, crushing her against him. She couldn’t move to touch his cock, tempt him, but he was already nuzzling his mouth down her neck and moving for her breasts. “I need you all the time. That’s why I’m trying to give you sleep and food, baby. You gotta keep up your strength so we can make love as much as we want.”</p><p>“Make love seems too tame for what I want,” she growled. Her face flamed when she said the words, how stupid they sounded in her mouth, how juvenile. “I like it when I have bruises. I like to watch them fade during the day - see them in the mirror when I go to the bathroom - knowing we’ll make new ones. Layers.”</p><p>“Kate,” he murmured, lips caressing the top of her breast before his head lifted. “Bruises are part of making love when we do it. Don’t sell us short.”</p><p>“No,” she sighed, chewing her bottom lip before she let herself say the rest. “I won’t. I - know.”</p><p>His eyes snapped to hers, that blue fire, that raging intensity he’d had in that place when he’d rolled through the doorway and lowered his weapon. He gripped her face in his hands, hard, and shoved a kiss onto her mouth, tongue pushing inside and stroking.</p><p>She moaned and opened herself to him, rubbing against him so that his clothes burned her skin. He took her mouth and then gripped her bare ass, kneading and drawing her closer, catching her on fire with that all-consuming need.</p><p>She felt crazy; she felt sane for what seemed like the first time in her life. Three years and now she had the most clarity and insight and fucking good feeling she’d ever had, ever, ever, ever-</p><p>“Take my fucking clothes off,” he growled. “Damn it, Kate. I need you right now. Need you.”</p><p>She shivered and hurried to comply, roughly pushing down his pants and scraping the boxers off as well. He was trying to lay her back against the mattress but she kept surging up into his kiss, his strokes, his hands at her ass.</p><p>“I want you to make love to me,” she mumbled at his ear, breathing hard as she explored up his abs, letting him step out of his pants. “I want - I want to make love to you.”</p><p>“You already do,” he whispered. His mouth sucked hard at her neck and she whimpered, shoved up hard on his shirt to get it off him.</p><p>He stepped back only long enough to rip it over his head, kicking his pants away. She heard the velcro of his ankle holster and jerked back, a dark skitter of panic through her guts, but the gun dropped to the carpet, muffled, and he was already crawling into bed with her, bearing her down.</p><p>She struggled to breathe, pressed a hand to one eye and grit her teeth. Castle’s hips bucked into her and she felt his erection between them, at her belly.</p><p>“Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t you dare. You stay with me.”</p><p>“Fuck me,” she pleaded. “Hurry.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>She moaned and opened her eyes to him, saw the furious grief in his eyes, the way his mouth was set in a hard line. “Please, please, just-”</p><p>“I’m not fucking you. You said you wanted it. Love.” He swooped down and claimed her mouth, claimed her soul, his hand at the back of her head and angling her for his kiss. She widened her legs and he settled his thigh at her sex, pushing down with his knee.</p><p>She cried out into his mouth; he bit her bottom lip and stroked his tongue over the spot. She was shuddering against the hardness of his quad, little licks of flame through her body, putting out the panic.</p><p>“You said you wanted it,” he reminded her again, rocking his hips against her. She moaned and clutched the back of his head, grabbed for his arm to bring herself up against him. He reached roughly between them and twisted her nipple. “Did you mean it?”</p><p>He twisted again and she keened, riding up, feeling it so close, so close. His mouth came down to lave his tongue around her nipple, his fingers twisting even as his kiss cooled. She was shivering and desperate, rocking her hips frantically against his thigh, riding that rough and terrible edge.</p><p>“Did.” He pinched her nipple. “You.” A brutal scrape of his teeth. “Mean it?” He suckled and she screamed, her milk letting down just as her orgasm hit, breaking into her, shattering her.</p><p>He sucked at her breast and came down her belly, her hips jerking wildly, and then his mouth settled over her sex. She groaned and humped his face, gripped his ears as he began to kiss her, his tongue, his lips, his teeth, that wet and lewd pleasure.</p><p>She felt herself hurtling towards the edge, felt her body out of her control, but she jerked on his ears, pulled hard.</p><p>He lifted his face from her sex, eyes feral, and she had to suck in a ragged breath just to get enough air in her lungs to speak.</p><p>“I want to love you,” she said. “I want to. Does that - count at all?”</p><p>His face went white.</p><p>Her hips fell back to the mattress.</p><p>And then Castle crawled up over her and caught her jaw with a hand, kissed her deeply, her arousal on his tongue and sliding inside her. She moaned and clutched at him, but his fingers were already pressing apart her sex, opening her up for him, and with one shift of his hips, he was thrusting home.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Chapter 24</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He saw everything.</p><p>Her lashes fluttering.</p><p>The sweat at her ear. </p><p>The gold necklace draped at her collarbones.</p><p>He saw everything as he fucked her, slowly, deeply. He saw the work of her throat as she tried to breathe. He saw her breasts flush and chafe after he rubbed his cheek against her skin. He saw her hands fists in the sheets and release as her body urged his.</p><p>He braced her with both arms under her back, a tight grip on her nape, and he drove his hips into her. She was all breathy moans and whimpers of his name, and he knew she was much more battered and sore than she wanted to believe or admit because she still hadn’t come again.</p><p>Twice, back to back, but now she seemed to be unable to climb that peak.</p><p>He knew why, of course he knew - she was beyond worn out, they had fucked more than any normal person could endure, and it had been a severely emotional few days. Weeks. </p><p>Years.</p><p>But she was throwing herself at him, literally pitching hers body into his, fucking herself on him, desperate for more, for the next climax, for the one that would stave off a different kind of desperation. </p><p>And more - she had said I want to love you and for this kind of failure - he knew she saw this as her failure, frustrated to the bitter edge - for this failure to layer on top of that kind of raw honesty from her would only mean bad things for them in the future.</p><p>He knew that with a certainty that made him ache.</p><p>If he couldn’t ease her into an orgasm, she would think the worst of her love.</p><p>He had to do something.</p><p>She needed more.</p><p>Castle lifted up on his elbows and he pulled out of her, withdrew completely to sit back on his heels. She didn’t protest, and it broke his heart, his own frustration choking his throat. </p><p>Kate lifted a shaking hand to her face as if to hide, a whimper that she swallowed back, but Castle reached out for her, grabbed her by the hands. Not tenderly, but firm.</p><p>“Come here, sweetheart. I want us to do something beautiful.”</p><p>Her neck arched as she rose, but she came up into his arms, covers tangling around her legs. He gripped her thigh and unwound the bedsheet, kissed her throat where her head tilted back.</p><p>He sat with his heels together and thighs open, his cock thick and fierce from the nest of his groin. Kate’s head was down, but when she saw him, saw his erection wet with her juices, she lifted her chin, tongue touching the back of her teeth.</p><p>“What are we doing?” she asked, voice breaking. “-Beautiful?”</p><p>“Yeah, sweetheart, come sit in my lap.”</p><p>“In or - on?”</p><p>He grinned and cupped her face, drew her mouth to his, sipped slowly. Like nectar. “In, at first. So you can touch me. And then on. So I can touch you.”</p><p>“Oh,” she whispered, shuddering. She crawled into his lap with her ass on his heels, and he brought her knees up to her chin for just a moment before widening her thighs. </p><p>“Cross your legs behind my back, little closer. Bodies closer, love.”</p><p>She snaked an arm around his neck to steady herself, rocked her hips to get closer as she wound her legs around his waist.</p><p>“Ah, beautiful,” he sighed, nuzzling down into her neck. He kissed the top of her breast, licked a trail down to her painfully erect nipple. As tight as a bud about to flower.</p><p>“Let me touch you,” she murmured back, nudging her cheek into his chin and bringing his head up so she could see. </p><p>Castle groaned when her fingers touched him, felt his hips buck sharply with the glide of her nails up to his head. “Fuck - that’s so - so good.”</p><p>“Yeah?” she whispered.</p><p>“Grinding my teeth to hold back.”</p><p>“You don’t have to hold back.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he said shortly. “I do. Want - this more.”</p><p>“More than...?”</p><p>“More than - than fuck - coming in your hands.”</p><p>“You could though,” she whispered.</p><p>He growled and shook his head, nipped at her bottom lip, licked. “Want to fuck you a little before I come.”</p><p>“I guess that can be arranged.”</p><p>“I just did arrange it,” he rasped, scraping his teeth back to her ear. “Didn’t I?”</p><p>“Oh, yes,” she hummed. “You did. And you feel like hot, heavy silk. A knife.”</p><p>The knife got to him; he moaned at the thought of her handling him like she did that damn knife, covetous and possessing. “Damn, baby, I - fuck.” He shuddered again and gripped her thighs, aware of how he was bruising her. “E-enough. Let me inside you again.”</p><p>“I never wanted you out. You were the one who pulled-”</p><p>“For this, just for this, see how beautiful it looks between us?” He husked her name as he kissed her again, tongue moving slowly into her mouth, reminding her. </p><p>She moaned and broke from him, breaths panting at his cheek, and now he felt her hips rocking so that her ass ground against his heels.</p><p>“The lotus,” he explained softly, touching her knees with his fingertips. “Because your limbs look like petals, and here-” He dragged his fingers down her thighs to the inside, the weeping place, stroked lightly through her folds. “Here is the heart of the flower.”</p><p>“Oh, God,” she moaned, shaking in his arms.</p><p>He thumbed the hood back from her clit and teased.</p><p>Kate cried out, arching so hard he had to catch her, brace her in his lap. Her inside thighs were twitching, violent spasms as she grit her teeth. </p><p>So close, so damn close.</p><p>“Now that you’ve seen how beautiful we are,” he hummed at her mouth, kissing lightly from her lips. “Now you can feel it too. Come here, sweetheart, I want inside you.”</p><p>Kate groaned and shifted closer, heels tightening at his back, arm curling at his neck. He guided her hips and didn’t need any help finding her sex. She was so open that her sex was like a gaping mouth, hungry for him.</p><p>He penetrated her slowly, using her hips to control her descent, keeping an arm banded low at her back for leverage. Kate moaned his name and began shaking again, everything responding to him, her body already ridden too hard.</p><p>He asked for more, pressing himself inside her, calling her farther, pushing his cock deeper. She breathed hotly against his neck and gripped him inside, tightening and releasing, a rhythmic clutch at his cock that left him a little dizzy.</p><p>“How beautiful you are,” he husked. “How much you make me feel. Everything weeping for me. Feel yourself open up for me? Feel how you want me?”</p><p>“Oh, please, please,” she moaned. “Please.”</p><p>He found himself buried deep, pressing against resistance like he had bottomed out. She was gripping his nape so tightly she was going to crack his spine, but her body shook like a leaf.</p><p>Castle nudged his hips a little and she wailed, going rigid, but still working too hard, still opening and closing around him, a desperate flower.</p><p>He rocked his hips again and this time grazed his thumb against her hooded clit, pinching it between her own body and his cock.</p><p>She gave a hoarse cry and orgasmed like a shot, her body riding his cock in her need, tightening and squeezing and gripping him until he climaxed after her, his mouth buried in her shoulder and his body wrapped around hers so tightly.</p><p>Between them, the gold necklace scraped his chest when he tried to breathe.</p><p>His feet had gone to sleep. </p><p>But she was relaxed, limp in his arms, curled in his lap like a gangly kitten.</p><p>Castle kissed the corner of her eye and tasted salt, but he said nothing.</p><p>-----</p><p>“Beautiful, how beautiful,” he was saying. At her cheek, at her breast, at her hip. She was limp and weak and dazzled, watching him as he laid her down in the bed again. “So beautiful.”</p><p>His fingers coasted her knee and wrapped around the joint, and then he gently closed her thighs. </p><p>Kate shuddered, aftershocks zipping through her body as he crawled up and laid himself beside her. Half over her.<br/>“Supposed to - breakfast?” she muttered, her limbs not working.</p><p>“Just an idea,” he murmured at her temple. “I liked yours better.”</p><p>She laughed, too breathless to keep it up, turned her body into his. Her knees knocked into his, but he gripped behind her thigh and arranged her over one of his legs, the other sliding between her own so that she was hooked over his hip. Pressed her sex to the crease where his thigh met his body, and they could both feel the fluids slicking her folds.</p><p>“Getting you wet,” she sighed, squirming ineffectually.</p><p>“I am entirely okay with that. Besides, half of it’s mine. Well. Most of it is mine, probably.”</p><p>She couldn’t help the twitch of a smile, though her eyes seemed to be glued shut. “Might fall asleep.”</p><p>“Go for it. I’ll wake you when it becomes imperative.”</p><p>“Nurse the boys.”</p><p>“It’ll happen. Supposed to drink the pedialyte first, I think. Fucked too much to nurse right away anyway.”</p><p>“They’ll be-”</p><p>“They can eat breakfast,” he growled. “Hush. I got this.”</p><p>She hid her smile into the pillow his arm made, bared her teeth to bite his bicep. His arm curled and his fingers combed through her hair, the flex of his muscle erotic and domineering.</p><p>That was a good word for him. Domineering. </p><p>Why did that have such a good connotation?</p><p>It did. She felt a smug satisfaction at being domineered. No idea why, or what that said about her, but the delicious burn between her legs and the exhaustion tripping through her blood meant something good.</p><p>“Your hair is soft,” he whispered.</p><p>“Huh?” She roused, eyes opening in time to see him come close. Kiss her eyebrow. Her lashes skimmed his cheek.</p><p>“Your hair is soft. I like to play with it.”</p><p>“Oh.” She had no idea what to say to that.</p><p>“I think I did a messy job of cutting it,” he said, looking apologetic. Like a puppy that knew it had done wrong. “But I tried to make it - pretty.”</p><p>“It is,” she said automatically. “It’s just fine. I like it.”</p><p>“I like it too,” he whispered, all little boy shyness. He wriggled as if he could get closer. Her inside thigh burned where the muscle stretched, but it was a good burn.</p><p>“Play all you want,” she murmured, eyes sliding shut again.</p><p>“Do you always wear make-up? I mean, the eyeliner and shadow and mascara? It makes your eyes huge. Beautiful. But then like this, in bed with me where it’s all rubbed off, they look so delicate. And then it makes your mouth - ah, hell - I want to kiss you every time.”</p><p>She startled awake just as his mouth pressed to hers, but his kiss was - was pretty. Delicate like he’d talked about her eyes without make-up, like his touch on her cheek and the reverence on his face.</p><p>“How you see me...” She trailed off, stunned by the adoration. The touch of his lips again to hers, the stroke of his thumb at her bottom lip.</p><p>“It’s all this balance,” he said, as if he was trying to explain why. “Your chin and your cheekbones, sharp and - and beautiful. It sounds stupid the more I say it, but I love how you look at me in the morning, like oh, good, it’s you. I’ve never had something so beautiful before.”</p><p>“Me either,” she whispered. And then her cheeks burned. “Except - the boys. I... I think they’re beautiful.”</p><p>His face lit up. “Me too!” He was so excited that she laughed, breathless, and he grinned. “They are beautiful. When they call me daddy, I kinda lose it.”</p><p>She smiled back, unfurled her hand to touch his chin. “I kinda noticed.”</p><p>“It’s the same when you look at me like that. I feel lucky but I shouldn’t. It shouldn’t be me. I don’t - deserve it. Deserve you. After everything my father did, your existence is astonishing. And so beautiful, right here with me in bed, letting me touch you. How can you stand it?”</p><p>“Stand it?” she echoed, her heart thumping.</p><p>“Me touching you. His son-”</p><p>“No,” she growled, flipping her hand to clutch the back of his neck. Drag them closer, so her hips and his collided. She groaned and felt the wonderful lick of contentment, the buzz of satiation. “No, not his. None of us are his. We’re each other’s. Aren’t we? Aren’t you mine?”</p><p>“Yes,” he whispered, the sound of his heart in his voice. “How could I be anything else.”</p><p>“Don’t think about him. He’s nothing. He’s done.”</p><p>“He’s done,” Castle echoed. His arms wrapped around her body and pressed her against him. A hug. A hug that she shuddered into and sank down to his heart. Hearing it under her ear. Feeling it. “You’re so beautiful. How beautiful to me. Thank you.”</p><p>For what?</p><p>-----</p><p>She slept another hour and then he had texts from Colin and Eastman both, and then Carrie sent him a picture of the boys at the table in the big dining room, oatmeal smeared across their faces. It was, he supposed, an attempt to shame him out of bed with her, but he didn’t bite.</p><p>He did, however, figure they ought to get in touch with his older brother sooner rather than later. </p><p>It was the phone call from the vet at the lake that pulled him up. “Hello?”</p><p>“Mr Hunt?”</p><p>“Call me Sam,” Castle said quickly. “I’m sorry we had to back out on you about yesterday. We had some trouble with the boys.”</p><p>“No, no, I understand. Called to let you know that I started the training and - well, it went a lot more smoothly than I expected. Got me thinking. I did some research, started with basic physiology.”</p><p>Castle rubbed the back of his neck. It was difficult to pay attention when he had a hundred other things on his plate. When it felt like every hour was a fight for Kate’s life.</p><p>“Look, long story short,” the vet said. “I don’t think this is pure wolf we’re dealing with.”</p><p>“Yeah, you said-”</p><p>“No, more than - it’s different then even the wolf and wild dog mix I was expecting. It’s German Shepherd. And that makes a difference.”</p><p>“Oh?” Castle felt the first faint stirring of interest, knowing somewhere in him that his sons would be around this wild thing, not quite able to be afraid of that. But cautious.</p><p>“In the Netherlands, they’re doing this crossbreeding program between German Shepherds and European wolves. The idea was to create a more physically robust work dog, one with pure form, large bones, musculature. And while yes, that happened, it wasn’t the work dog they expected. For the most part, these wolfhounds are family dogs. They’re too cautious, too reserved. They lack the ferocity to attack, the aggression. It may be why your wife observed them at the river so many times - they just don’t have it in them.”</p><p>“Wait. You said the Netherlands. We’re talking about New York.”</p><p>“It’s not a Saarloos, truly, no. But this pup has the markers for German Shepherd, while the ears and teeth are distinctly wolf. And experience says that this hybrid will result in a family pet. I’ve seen it so far myself. He plays rough, he bares his teeth, but not once has he gone for the throat. I put him in with my dog, Bear, an old hound, and nothing but normal dog-dog interaction.”</p><p>“That’s - good right? He’ll be tamed. He can be tamed.”</p><p>“He’s not quite there yet; we’ll see about fully tamed. But so far, no killer instinct. And since we got to him young, a lot of handling and care might even make him an indoor dog.”</p><p>“My sons?”</p><p>“I can’t guarantee anything at this early a stage. But we’ve got positive signs. The older he gets, the more his true parentage shows. So far, his aggression is limited to standard puppy play.”</p><p>Castle cleared his throat, ran a hand down his face. “That’s good. Really good. Thank you for doing this. We - my wife is attached - more than attached. Kinship, I think. It means a lot you’re willing to help us.”</p><p>“I’m helping the pup,” the vet said. “And believe me, I understand kinship. And you’re paying me a lot to do this - that helps.” The vet gave a chuckle on the other end and then sighed. “I’d do it for free. That’s the damn truth.”</p><p>Castle sighed back. “I’d still pay you.”</p><p>They both laughed, dry, a little hollow with the realization that they were - most likely - cut from the same cloth. At least, Castle wanted the man to think that; it made him more willing to forgive their excuses and need for privacy. The vet would keep his mouth shut about the traps, and about what they’d done to the hunter.</p><p>“Look, I’ll let you go. Wanted to keep you up to date.”</p><p>“Thanks. I appreciate that.”</p><p>There wasn’t even a good-bye; the line was just cut. Castle put his phone back on the dresser but when he turned back to Kate, he saw she was awake and studying him.</p><p>“Hey,” he offered, laying a hand on her bare hip. “Morning again.”</p><p>“Was that the vet?”</p><p>“He says Wolf is doing good. Better than he expected. He looked up the breed, thinks the daddy was a German Shepherd or close enough. He said he thinks the wolfdog might be a family pet.”</p><p>“What does that mean?” she whispered.</p><p>“Good for the boys,” he said, not entirely a lie. He just had hope, and a good feeling about Kate’s instincts. “And maybe even live inside. He said German Shepherds mixed with wolves in Europe wound up lacking aggression, were reserved and cautious.”</p><p>“Good for the boys?”</p><p>“Something to be rough with,” he said, shrugging one shoulder and trying not to touch her too much. Not get her ramped up again. “Kids need dogs. Pets. Don’t you think?”<br/>“I always wanted a dog,” she admitted, bitting her bottom lip.</p><p>“Yeah, me too.” He leaned in and kissed her, a light touch of mouths, and then pushed up from the bed. “Got a text from the Eastmans. They’ve fed the boys, saved some breakfast out for us before they put away the buffet. You want?”</p><p>“I want to shower,” she said, sitting up as well. Stretching. Lithe. Gorgeous. Her breasts were full. But her nipples looked chafed, skin cracking. Damn. He hadn’t - he might have done that. And nursing, boys with little teeth in the back. He’d ask Carrie maybe if she knew of something. Lotion?</p><p>“I’m gonna get dressed and grab our plates from the Eastmans, bring it back to the room.”</p><p>“Bring the boys?” She turned in the doorway, flipped the bathroom light on. She looked more confident than she had in a long while. Sleep and sex. New magic formula.</p><p>He had to be sure to get the portions right. More sleep. More food. Had to. “Yeah, bring them with me. Shower fast, love.”</p><p>He caught her wrist before she turned, brought her hand to his lips for a soft kiss. </p><p>She paused, watching him. Studying him. As if trying to figure out his angle.</p><p>No angle. Just love. “Thanks for making my morning. Tomorrow morning, I’ll give us enough lead time.”</p><p>She actually smiled at that, but she tossed it over her shoulder as she turned around and slipped into the bathroom.</p><p>He waited until he heard the water go on, waited for a few more minutes after that to be sure she was - stable in there. Steady.</p><p>When he heard her humming, he thought it was a song he knew. </p><p>And he felt okay leaving her to collect the boys and their breakfast.</p><p>-----</p><p>The boys thought jumping on the bed was hilarious. Wyatt giggled like a crazy man, despite how cautiously he approached the jump, but James, strong and confident, bounced all over the mattress, kicking up pillows and knocking off the covers, grinning and nudging his brother.</p><p>“Don’t spill Mommy’s breakfast,” Castle warned them. James bounced to his knees and sat hunched there, watching him. Wyatt took his cue from his brother and waited, hesitating near the headboard with his hand gripping the padded frame. </p><p>The shower cut off just at that moment, and the boys swiveled their heads to the bathroom and then back to him, wary.</p><p>Castle sighed and came in close, cupped the back of Wyatt’s head to kiss his cheek, a little rough. And then he dropped down to James and pressed his lips to the boy’s forehead. He definitely didn’t want Kate coming out of the bathroom to see them like this.</p><p>“I didn’t mean you had to stop. It’s not that kind of thing. But look, guys, see that covered plate? That’s for Mommy.” He pointed at the bedside table where he’d rested her breakfast, and then realized - stupid.</p><p>Castle straightened up, moved to the nightstand and plucked up the plate. He headed for the dresser and pushed one of the bags off, dumped it to the floor to set her plate on the wood top. </p><p>“Alright, my bad. This is smarter. Now, guys, go for it. Jump around.”</p><p>James glanced to Wyatt, Wyatt turned his head to the side, still looking at Castle, and let loose a little smile. Castle grinned back and it seemed all they needed. Wyatt started first, hanging on to the headboard and jumping with both feet, and then James stood up again and ran in tight circles over the mattress.</p><p>Castle had been given clothing duty by Carrie when he’d gone next door, handed both boys and their bag of stuff. She had put them in the bathtub and washed the oatmeal out of their hair, but that seemed to have been an all-out struggle. He could definitely see why she’d passed on getting them dressed. They were kind of crazy this morning. Energetic and silly.</p><p>Meant good things, right? </p><p>The bathroom door clicked as it opened, and Wyatt shrieked, bouncing harder, while James lifted his arms, jumping as he did, as if to launch himself at Kate as she came across the threshold. “Mommy!”</p><p>She startled to a stop, her mouth dropping open, and then she looked at him.</p><p>“Uh, hi?” he offered, wriggling his fingers at her.</p><p>She glanced back to the boys, only a towel covering her, her hair in long, wet tendrils down her back and shoulders. She reached reflexively for James, drawing him up into her arms, and he snuggled right down against her, despite her damp skin and wet hair and the towel.</p><p>“Hi,” she said softly, nuzzling James. “Why are you guys naked?”</p><p>“I’m not naked,” Castle said.</p><p>She huffed, a little gift of a laugh, rolling her eyes at him. Her hand came up to the back of James’s head and her kiss to his cheek was long enough to make Castle’s heart ache.</p><p>“Carrie gave them a bath and then couldn’t quite corral them to get them dressed.”</p><p>“Oh, guess we should all get dressed, huh, guys?” She held out an arm to Wyatt and the boy bounced his way over, giggling with every step. He crashed into her and she laughed, knees dipping. “Whoops. Losing my towel.”</p><p>Castle came forward to help, catching the end as it dropped and bared her ass, and he tucked the end back into the top. Too bad. </p><p>She turned her head and looked at him, a lovely heat in her eyes, a kind of lazy want rather than an urgent one. He kissed the damp, heated skin of her shoulder and gathered Wyatt out of her arms.</p><p>“Let’s start with you. Mommy can nurse your brother while I get you dressed.”</p><p>“Mm, good idea,” Kate said, shifting a knee to the mattress. She wriggled her shoulders to drop the towel again, and Castle couldn’t help watching.</p><p>But he roused when she lowered James to her breast, saw the wince flicker across her face. “Hey, I got something for that.” He wrestled Wyatt to the dresser and then dropped to his haunches before the bag he’d tossed off in favor of her breakfast. He unzipped the bag and reached in, pulled out the plastic bag from the grocery store.</p><p>When he turned around, James was already nursing. Kate had an interesting look on her face, something between contentment and restlessness. He had no idea how to parse that, so he came to the bed and opened the pharmacy bag. </p><p>“Carrie said this would help,” Castle told her. “She went out and got it for me while you were in the shower.”</p><p>“What is that?”</p><p>“Sierra Sage Comfort Cream. For the cracking and bleeding. It’s non-GMO and pesticide free-”</p><p>“Pesticide-”</p><p>“Well, apparently all the rage in the 80s was lanolin, but that’s from sheep and they had to soak the wool in pesticides to get rid of fleas, and so the lanolin is heavy with pesticides.”</p><p>“Holy fuck,” she croaked.</p><p>“But this is lanolin-free. A new thing. Carrie talked to the pharmacist about it at this health store down the block.”</p><p>“God,” Kate said, pressing her hand to her face. “What does it matter? Let them crack. I’m not putting that anywhere near-”</p><p>“No, wait,” he interrupted, sinking down to sit beside her. “That’s what I mean - it doesn’t have any of that stuff in it. It’s all natural.”</p><p>Wyatt squirmed out of his arms and resumed bouncing, though carefully, his hands on the mattress so that he mostly just kicked out like a mule. </p><p>“All natural,” she echoed.</p><p>“Beeswax, chamomile flowers, and extra virgin olive oil. Plus - I know it sounds bad - but the boys’ bodies are made for this, Kate. Made to sweat out toxins, clean out poisons from their bloodstream. Of any kid? These kids can handle it. They’re engineered to handle it.”</p><p>Kate’s face fell, her eyes dropping to watch James as he nursed.</p><p>“But it doesn’t matter,” he said quickly. “We don’t have to worry about it. Because this is safe. And I tasted it-”</p><p>Her eyes startled up to him. “You did?”</p><p>“Yeah, course. If they were gonna have to - yeah. Tastes kinda sweet. The chamomile flowers, I guess. And I - feel responsible.”</p><p>“For what?” she said, forehead creasing. He didn’t know if it was the pain of having James on her abused nipple or just her confusion.</p><p>“For doing that-” He gestured to her breast, felt even worse for not being able to name it, to own it. “For contributing. Three mouths to feed.” He gave her a little smile, hoping it came across as humorous as he’d intended, and then he stroked the back of his fingers against the top slope of her breast. “I love your breasts. First - you know - first touch I got, first connection like that.”</p><p>Kate’s skin rippled. He lifted his eyes to her and saw her watching him. He leaned in and so softly kissed her. </p><p>When his lips parted from hers, a little wet, definitely warm, she sighed. He cupped the side of her loose breast, felt the rough skin below her nipple. “I want to take care of you. Especially since you’re taking care of me. And our sons.” He nudged his cheek against hers. “Plus, I don’t want to stop putting my mouth on you.”</p><p>“No,” she breathed. “Don’t stop.”</p><p>“Tastes like flowers,” he told her quietly. Reminding her of this morning. He felt her cheeks flush, the warmth under her skin, and he was relieved.</p><p>She’d use it now and think of him, use it for him, when he knew she’d never bother just for herself.</p><p>He was beginning to figure out how this worked with her. She was completely selfless in the best ways, but she was also without regard for her own health.</p><p>That was his job, and he wasn’t going to fail.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate carried James, who was snuggly and sleepy this morning after all that jumping around, while Eastman held Wyatt. The man had leaned over and plucked the boy right off the luggage cart he’d been riding, and now he was talking to Wyatt as he carried him out of the hotel lobby.</p><p>She and Castle had dressed the boys in jeans and t-shirts, though she’d had a strange spark of interest when it had come down to it. She had been tugging the plain navy t-shirt over Wyatt’s head and she’d had the weird thought that he’d look so adorable in one of those tweed vests. </p><p>Little chucks on his feet. His hair flopping into his eyes. It was so clear. And - and she could do that. It didn’t have to be plain t-shirts, just like it didn’t have to be those white onesies. She could do - anything. They could do anything, be anything.</p><p>Free.</p><p>“Going to collect Alex, all of us,” Eastman said from the front of their line. Colin had left to pull up the Jeep, but Castle was at her side, shaking his head.</p><p>“No, not all of us. I don’t think it’s a good idea to show him the numbers on our side.”</p><p>“Right now, he thinks you don’t have numbers. He and Ben and that strange girl have had all the time they need to figure out how they’re going to play you. Let them see it’s not just you.”</p><p>Kate glanced at Castle to see how he was taking this, but he was looking at her. She shrugged and tried not to influence him, one way or the other, because she just didn’t know.</p><p>The idea of putting more people between them, more than just her and Alex...</p><p>But worse. Her sons in that room.</p><p>“Alright,” Castle said grimly. “All of us. That’s - I can see that. But not Carrie. Not the boys. Kate?”</p><p>“I’m going!”</p><p>“No, I mean, are you okay with Carrie keeping the boys out of this?”</p><p>“Yes,” she said, James wriggling against her chest as he hunkered down. She kissed the side of his face, felt him return the favor with his lips against her collarbone. “Out of this. Keep them safe.”</p><p>Carrie gave her a look but Kate didn’t have the capacity for that right now. The Jeep drove up at that moment, and she let out a breath of relief, moving past Carrie and Eastman to open the back door.</p><p>Colin came around and reached for Wyatt, but Eastman shook his head. “We’re all going. So Carrie needs the carseats. Care, just drive around for a while, maybe go through the tunnel and-”</p><p>“Not out of the city,” Castle said gruffly. “You’re not taking them out of the city.”</p><p>There was a kind of standoff, with the Colin and Eastman and Castle all glaring at each other, but Kate shifted James in her grip and touched Castle’s forearm.</p><p>“Just a drive,” she said finally. She didn’t feel good about the boys being driven out of the city, that far from them, but they didn’t know how long it would take them, this meeting with Alex and Ben. And maybe farther away was better. In case.</p><p>“No,” Carrie said quietly. “No, I won’t drive them out of the city. We’ll go to Central Park. Nice and anonymous. Right, guys? We can see the bears at the zoo or play on the playground.”</p><p>“Oh, the zoo,” Kate murmured, jiggling James. “Doesn’t that sound fun, baby? You’ve never been to a zoo. Bears, and the penguins - I love the penguins.”</p><p>“Oh,” Carrie cried, leaning in and startling Kate by throwing her arms around them both. “Not the zoo, no, I won’t do that. Let you have that one. We’ll stick to the playground.”</p><p>Kate stared at Carrie, and then realized - realized the woman meant to let her take the boys. One day. Someday. Their first trip to the zoo.</p><p>“Fine, fine. Playground. Carrie, you take the Jeep. We’ll walk.” Castle moved and took Wyatt from Colin - poor kid was being passed around - and then he settled the boy into his seat. “Ready for the playground, baby boy?”</p><p>Her heart did a funny little flip when Wyatt reached up and grasped Castle’s shoulders, arching his body in the seat to bring his daddy down to him. Castle brushed a kiss to the boy’s forehead, strapped him in.</p><p>Kate touched her cheek to the top of James’s head, but he had perked up a little. He squirmed in her arms and leaned out for Castle, and she released the boy to him, let Castle buckle James in to the other carseat.</p><p>Carrie touched her arm. “They’ll be just fine. I’ll take care of them. And Mark will look out after you. Well, I guess you’ve got them all looking out for you, don’t you?”</p><p>Kate roused, pulling her eyes away from the boys to look at Carrie. “Looking out for me. Oh. I - guess so.”</p><p>Carrie gave her a brief hug. “We want you healthy, Kate. And happy,” she added, soft in Kate’s ear. “Are you happy, Kate?”</p><p>She shivered and clutched at her elbows, couldn’t help the honesty. “I don’t know what that is really, anymore. But. I can close my eyes and sleep at night. The boys are happy.” At the look on Carrie’s face, she added, “Castle makes me laugh. I don’t know how long it’s been - but he’s good to me.”</p><p>Carrie squeezed Kate’s shoulders. Pulled her in for another hug. Kate knew she was flinching, knew the hug had been coming too, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.</p><p>“Come on, break it up,” Colin said loudly. “We need to get this show on the road.”</p><p>-----</p><p>It was strange to walk up to Alex's place on Broome Street and know that his brothers were inside, but no longer trustworthy. </p><p>How this woman at his side had changed everything he thought he knew to be true. How she had remade his entire life. </p><p>He might have lost two brothers, but the reality was - had he ever had them at all? They had been raised before him, already half-grown and deep into a program that had wreaked its damage long before Castle and Colin had shown up. Whatever issues Alex and Ben had from this, they had formed without Castle. </p><p>He and Colin had been grafted into their unit of two, but the graft had never quite taken. Castle just hadn't known any different, because that had just been how life was. Just as he'd never known how a mother ought to be until he'd known Kate. Seeing one moment of interaction between Kate and those boys was all he had needed to know exactly what a mother should have been. And the way he and Colin had been with each other - even that wasn't anywhere what it should have been, two men shut down and not talking and more belligerent than helpful.</p><p>He had dismissed Colin as a messed up junky for far too long, unwilling to pull his own head out of the sand to see what was going on around him. He was thirty years old, for fuck's sake; he knew better. He just hadn't wanted to.</p><p>Castle felt her hesitating at his side so he caught her hand and laced their fingers together, gave her something to hold on to. She shot him a look, more deer in the headlights than anything, and he leaned in and roughly kissed her mouth. </p><p>As if he could infuse strength into her with a wish. </p><p>But when he pulled back, her face was flushed and her shoulders a little straighter, and maybe he mattered to her. Maybe he did, at all, have an effect.</p><p>"Let's do this," Eastman said, opening the door first so Colin could take point. Castle made Kate hang back with him for a beat longer, Colin clearing the lobby with a practiced sweep of eyes and movement. </p><p>When they came inside, the security guard at the main desk - whom Castle knew - gave them the once-over. "No parties," he said, words dull and rote. </p><p>"Not partying, swear," Colin said, holing up both hands. "Brothers. Rennie, you don't remember me?"</p><p>"No parties."</p><p>"He does remember you," Castle said, shoving lightly on his brother's shoulder. "Ren. I promise you it's not a party. Just a family meeting. We're going on up." He moved past with confidence, and Rennie didn't obstruct their way. Kate came at his side, her fingers working within his grip, though not to be freed - just tapping against his knuckles or squirming as if she was nervous.</p><p>She might be.</p><p>He punched the call button for the elevator and Eastman took up their flank, staid and steady, and Kate leaned against Castle's shoulder for a moment.</p><p>He glanced at her and she turned her face into his shirt, took a breath. If she just needed a moment, he didn't want to call attention to it. But if it was more, if it was the elixir or needing more to eat or-</p><p>"Hush," she muttered. "I'm fine."</p><p>Yeah, that wasn't exactly reliable coming from her. But he only watched, observant, and paid attention. He had to be her monitor, her scale, for how bad it was because she clearly didn't have one. </p><p>The elevator finally opened up, and they trooped on, Castle and Kate at the very back, and Castle pressed her to one side, the side with the panel and the most shielding, just in case. Eastman loomed large before the doors, filling the space. He wasn't a big man, but he made himself big. He was just that good.</p><p>It would've been a nasty fight at the farm. Good thing it hadn't needed to happen.</p><p>Kate had changed everything. She really had. Lines had been redrawn, old enemies were allies, and old brothers were bad blood.</p><p>Damn, if Alex had really been there. If Alex had left her to Black, had dismissed her entirely from his mind-</p><p>He was pretty sure she wouldn't be entirely happy with that breakdown of things, so Castle kept himself in check. </p><p>They needed Anne. She was the one they were here for. Anne had knowledge about where the elixir had been stored. Be nice, be charming, be sweet - that's what Kate had told him yesterday. She has to trust you like I do. She doesn't trust Black's sons.</p><p>And could he blame her?</p><p>No one was going to trust him like Kate did. But he was damn well going to make the effort.</p><p>Anne first. </p><p>And then Alex.</p><p>He still had no idea how he was going to ensure his brothers' cooperation. Ben, yeah, Castle could get to Ben. The man had a soft heart; he had looked sick to death when Castle had showed up at their door with a dying girl and two babies. He could reach Ben.</p><p>The elevator doors opened on the penthouse floor and the whole car took a collective breath.</p><p>Time to do this.</p><p>-----</p><p>She didn’t remember this place. </p><p>Castle had taken her here after. Her and the boys both. He had taken her here for Alex’s help, but the tall windows and the beautiful furniture gave her nothing. </p><p>Ben was sitting at the kitchen table, looking pale, like he had things to say but no words to say them; he was going to see how it played out. She definitely knew that feeling.</p><p>Anne had stood when they’d entered, and it was her moment of eye contact, that almost help me second of connection, that hardened Kate’s resolve.</p><p>Shielded by bodies - men, men who were taller than her but for Eastman who was her own height, men strong, capable, men who had somehow stood on her side, by her side - Kate fiercely wished that she was alone.</p><p>With Alex Black.</p><p>Alone.</p><p>She wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do, other than have the room and a chance, other than the knife at her ankle, but there were too many people. All these people. She felt... chimerical. She was about to shift, she wanted the change, she was about to-</p><p>“Stay with me, Kate.”</p><p>Her head snapped up to him, and she felt his fingers snagging her jeans, the warmth of his skin pressing down against her hip, like he was tucking in her shirt.</p><p>“Stay.”</p><p>She nodded, and some of that liquid mercury feeling settled, but her lungs burned. </p><p>“Whole company, huh?” Alex was dressed in a crisp shirt, deep rose tie, expensive shoes. He had his hands on his hips, that look on his face she knew. Extreme confidence. </p><p>But. Projected. At its base, not confident at all. She knew that too, and it helped. “You and I need to sit down and talk,” Kate said quickly. She felt Castle stiffen. But she didn’t want Castle in charge of this; he went around in the same circles. “Your father never intended to keep me alive, and I know that. He was always flirting with my death. But that’s over now. Alex. That’s all over.”</p><p>Alex’s face went white; he looked to Castle.</p><p>“Don’t look at him, Alex. He can’t save you.” Castle’s fingers had released her jeans, but she didn’t look at him either. She felt that shock running through him, felt it down her own spine, and it was like steel.</p><p>No one knew her, in her darkest places. No one could have guessed.</p><p>She swallowed and stepped forward, sliding from behind Colin and Eastman to approach Alex. “I know what you did. What you helped him do. And now it’s time to make reparations, Alex.”</p><p>“There’s nothing I can-”</p><p>“No,” she said, firmly. “You don’t get to say no to me. You are alone here. Alone in this.”</p><p>“Listen to her,” Anne stressed, her body coming in close to Alex’s. Kate wasn’t sure about her, not really, but she did think Anne was afraid of her, and that helped. “You have to listen to her, Alex. She’s not fucking around. She will-” Anne’s voice lowered, only Kate and Alex heard it. “She will kill you. They won’t be able to stop her.”</p><p>Kate’s was flint. “No one can stop me,” she said quietly.</p><p>Alex’s eyes flicked past her to Castle. Castle who was in love with her and Alex had already seen that. To Eastman who had crowded her like an overprotective father. And Colin. </p><p>Colin.</p><p>“Col?” she said, only slightly lifting her voice.</p><p>He came immediately, stepping up at her side with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked dilettante rather than scary, but he was at her side, and all it had taken was his name.</p><p>He didn’t like her, but he liked his father less. </p><p>Colin didn’t have to be told what happened next; he leaned in with a nod to Kate. “You think we’re fucking around with you? I’ve been blowing up his shit for a decade now. Ten years trying to unmake that bastard’s terror. It started here, with us, but it ends here. It ends here. You don’t get to take up his mantle and slide it on like what he did wasn’t the most horrific fucking nightmare. It’s over.”</p><p>Alex’s eyes finally found hers once more. She didn’t know what that was in his gaze, what slithered behind his eyes, what darkness that was, whether it was growing up under Black’s thumb, or whether it was his own brand of darkness. But Alex couldn’t be allowed anywhere near the program.</p><p>“It’s over, huh?” He studied her, that long slow drag down her body that Black had always done. She felt nothing. His jaw clenched when he saw it didn’t work. “It’s not over if you’re asking me to set up trials on you.” His eyes shifted to Castle, and she knew what was coming out of his mouth next but she could do nothing to stop it. “Is that what you want, Castle? Because that’s all Black had, that’s all I’ve got. Guesswork. Let’s dump her with a bunch of minerals and vitamins, jack her up with elixir and see what happens.”</p><p>Before she could stop him - she had felt it coming, building this whole time, spiking when she’d called on Colin and not him - before she could even move, Castle had lunged forward, barreled past Colin, and swung his fist into Alex’s face.</p><p>-----</p><p>She didn’t stop him.</p><p>She let him.</p><p>She had meant to. She had felt it building, but when he had surged forward and swung at his brother, she hadn’t moved an inch. What rage was in that darkness, and if it was hers or his, she didn’t know that either.</p><p>But he swung once, Alex went to one knee, Anne screamed with a falsetto that rang through the echoing chamber of the room, and Ben stood up.</p><p>Castle stepped back, chest heaving, fist flexing. </p><p>“Richard.”</p><p>Kate’s head snapped to Ben, whom she had almost forgotten. He held up a hand, a kind of settle, settle as if he were the oldest and not Alex. Castle did settle, just like that, though Kate knew he’d already decided once was enough.</p><p>“Alright,” Ben said. His voice was nothing like Castle’s, nothing like Alex and Black’s. It was quiet, less richness to it, none of those deeper registers that crawled down her spine or lit her up. But there was something to the quiet that made everyone else go quiet.<br/>Even Alex, who had been groaning for his girlfriend’s sense of patheticness, sank back to the couch and stemmed the blood pouring out of his nose with the sleeve of his pretty shirt.</p><p>“Alright, we all know where we stand,” Ben said, taking one step into the living room. “Anne has information, and she’ll take you to the medical depository-”</p><p>“Do what?” Alex roared, but his words were muffled by the blood and his voice bubbled.</p><p>Anne took a sliding step away from him, dodging his swipe at her as he tried to catch her by the skirt. </p><p>“We’ll get this started,” Ben said. His arms hung; he looked like a big teddy bear, but Kate detected no paunch, no shuffling in his steps, no slump in his posture. She didn’t know why he gave the impression he did. She had underestimated him, and she had not done that in three years.</p><p>“What started?” Eastman spoke up. “Let’s be very clear here, because I don’t think we all have the same agenda here. Not even Beckett has the same agenda, obviously, because while Castle and I are looking to save her life, she’s looking to end the program - even as the cost of her own. Which is not acceptable. Do you hear me, Ben?”</p><p>“I have no intention of letting her die.”</p><p>“And what,” Castle snarled, stepping forward. “What exactly do you think you can do? Making promises-”</p><p>“I’m not a doctor, no. But what I am is what you need. I’m an analyst, Richard. I’m the one who kept the firewalls and the servers and the external drives. I’m the key to all of those secrets - and more than that, I know how to find what you’re looking for. I put the dots together; that’s my job.”</p><p>Ben. </p><p>Huh.</p><p>She hadn’t seen that coming.</p><p>-----</p><p>There was a gaping darkness in his chest, behind his sternum, as if he’d been shot and the cavity had been left open to vacuum. </p><p>The peculiar thing was not so much its existence, but that he’d never actually let himself know it was there before.</p><p>It had always been there.</p><p>It wasn’t Kate doing it, though she poured herself into that place, dark feeding on dark, but it had been there, eating into him, for years.</p><p>For years.</p><p>Colin had been the only honest one. The only willing to walk into a room where their dead father lay and reach down with the knife their father had given him and cut off the man’s balls to wrap them in material from their father’s own dress shirt - expensive and tasteful, as always - and then place them carefully and delicately in his pocket.</p><p>Castle had wanted to do that all this time. And more.</p><p>And only at this moment, standing in his brother’s well-appointed, immaculate home did Castle feel it.</p><p>How bleak and terrible his rage, how it had gnawed on him his whole life, eaten out his soul. He felt it now, the lack, because there was Kate, light to his darkness, darkness to his feeble effort at light, and the difference was so glaringly obvious that it was impossible to not know it.</p><p>But the moment Ben had said, I am what you need, with all the confidence of a man pushed to his absolute limits and beyond even that last desperation, he knew there had been much more going on, and that he, Richard Castle, had been complicit in this too. Ignorance was no defense.</p><p>His brothers, his older brothers, had needed him on their side, and he had closed his eyes.</p><p>“Ben,” Castle called, feeling it in his chest. Tearing the hole wider. “What did you do?”</p><p>“What I had to. To survive.”</p><p>His hands were shaking, just a tremor, but it went through him like weakness and Kate stepped up at his back and pressed her whole body into him and he sucked in a breath and stood up straighter for her.</p><p>“Mr Eastman, you’re very right,” Ben said. He had never had a commanding presence exactly, but Castle had always listened to him. The smart one; the insanely smart one. </p><p>Insanely.</p><p>“What am I right about?” Eastman said, dry dry dry.</p><p>“There are a variety of agendas going on here. I’m going to tell you pointblank mine. And my brother’s. And Anne’s-”</p><p>“You said you wouldn’t-”</p><p>“Sit down, Anne.” The look he levered on Anne was enough to drop her to the couch, staring at Ben. Looked like even the psychopath Anne had misjudged Ben. “That’s better. How about every sit down? I’m going to put it all on the table.”</p><p>“I’d rather stand,” Colin said amiably, grinning as he always did.<br/>“No, Col,” Ben answered. “You’ll sit. Right next to me, if you think that’s necessary, and you can put your hand right on my arm, take a reading.”</p><p>Castle froze. Colin didn’t even blink.</p><p>But Alex roused, nose still bleeding, his head tilted back. “What is this, Ben? A fucking seance? Just-”</p><p>“Colin knows what I’m talking about,” Ben said. He turned his eyes to Castle, and a dark chill washed down Castle’s back.</p><p>He knew about Colin. Did he know - anything else? Kate and the boys and him, that connection, that-</p><p>“Sit down,” Colin grumbled. “Before he starts blabbing all our damn secrets.”</p><p>Eastman was giving Castle a look as if to say, your call, which Castle fucking appreciated even though he had no idea what that call should be. He reached behind him and gripped the back of Kate’s jeans, tugged until she came to his side.</p><p>They sat down. Most only the chairs and couch, but Castle managed one of the wider pieces of furniture, something like a loveseat but with no arms, and Kate sat very close to him. Whatever that darkness was, they were magnets for each other, and it seemed agony if he tried to move away.</p><p>It was a vortex, and he only hoped it didn’t swallow her as it was trying to do to him.</p><p>“Anne wants Alex to marry her. She doesn’t especially love him, but she loves how he makes her feel, and how she can control him, which is - I think, Anne - close enough with Alex.”</p><p>Every head swiveled to the girl and her mouth dropped open and her cheeks flushed in a way that was very real. Entirely unlike what they’d seen from her before. She hissed something at Ben, and wouldn’t look at Alex, and holy fuck, she was crying.</p><p>Alex’s hand laid heavily on her knee and squeezed. “I’d marry you in a second if you asked.” His voice was thick with his own blood.</p><p>She kind of laughed, and dashed a hand under her eye, and finally looked at him. “I don’t - think you really want me.”</p><p>“I don’t think I could do any better.”</p><p>“Hear, hear!” Castle agreed loudly. No one laughed, but he felt Kate’s smile pressed against his shoulder, and his chest was suddenly filled with that, with that, with her, and the gaping empty mouth was shut up for a while.</p><p>“I’m not sure if that’s an insult or a compliment?” Anne was fishing and no one was rising to take the bait, and she’d just had her life smeared across the floor. She hung her head in a show of something they weren’t buying either, and then lifted her chin and glanced to Kate. “I hate what it does to him. That’s why I want you to have all of it. All the stupid fancy insulin shit. Whatever it is. I hate it.”</p><p>“We all need it though,” Ben said quietly. He shook his head. “I was starting with the good news, I guess.” He gave Castle a faint smile. “While you and Colin have spent the last few years destroying everything our father built, I’ve spent the last fifteen trying to build on it.”</p><p>“What?” Castle growled.</p><p>“Who do you think really called you about the pedialyte, little brother?”</p><p>Castle jerked his head toward Alex but of course Alex hadn’t done that - offered them help? No. No way. Not after he and Colin had wrecked everything. Knowing now how deep he was.</p><p>“It was you?” Kate murmured.</p><p>“Me. But Castle would never have taken my word for it. What do I know?”</p><p>“What do you know?” Kate said, leaning forward. “How do you know?”</p><p>“I’m an analyst. That was my training. I look at the patterns and I figure out what’s really going on. I see what other people don’t see. Like Colin’s unique ability. Like the elixir and what it does. I learned very early on that this program was going to kill me if I didn’t take steps to figure it out.”</p><p>“That last-” Castle’s throat closed up, remembering.</p><p>“That last surgery,” Ben answered, nodding. “Nearly did. Augmentations didn’t take. But while it did different things to each of us, I had to know why. And how to keep it from killing me.”</p><p>“Augmentations?” Eastman said, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees. “He put you boys in surgery?”</p><p>“Yes,” Alex huffed. “But it was only to make the elixir - it was like a graft. Mitochondrial graft. Only sometimes it didn’t work. Oh, but don’t worry, your precious ones never had to do that. Colin and Richard are perfect.”</p><p>“Not so perfect,” Colin muttered, rubbing a hand down his face. He looked haggard. And Castle knew he wasn’t helping, but he couldn’t do a thing to stop it.</p><p>“Mitochondrial graft,” Kate said. “What is that?”</p><p>“It won’t help,” Ben told them. “It didn’t help us either. It won’t help you. It will only do damage. But if I have those files, the master key, I can figure it out for all of us, what works, what had been working.”</p><p>“I’m hearing a big fucking ‘but’ in here,” Castle snapped.</p><p>“But your goal - end the program - that won’t exactly be happening if I do this.”</p><p>“Why not?” Kate had sat up straighter now, her posture ramrod. “Looking at some files and figuring out how to keep the three of us from dying - how’s that anything at all like keeping the program going?”</p><p>“I need the elixir.” Ben maintained eye contact for a heartbeat longer, and then he looked at all of them. “Alex doesn’t. He’ll - make it without. But I have to have it to keep - going as I am.”</p><p>“What does that mean? Going as you are,” Castle said, his spy senses pricking to that phrase. “What are you taking it for, Ben? It never worked well for you.”</p><p>“I’m thirty-eight years old. I’ve been working on my own medical file for fifteen years. This is my life’s work. I’ve altered my own body chemistry so much just trying to stay in balance that it’s necessary now. To maintain my - it’s not just about how my blood cells work, not for me. Like Colin, it did something to my mental abilities. It’s why I see patterns, why I know things. But when I don’t have it... things start to slide back. To average. I can’t be average, Richard. I can’t go back to that.”</p><p>“Flowers for Algernon,” Kate murmured.</p><p>He had no idea what she was saying; he only knew that his brother was basically tell him the elixir made him smart. “But it won’t kill you,” he said. “Right. It - wait. Will it? Ben. Is it going to kill you?” </p><p>Ben rubbed the back of his neck. “In time. It will. But. It’s necessary for me. It’s vital. It is my life. That’s why Alex had it here. He shouldn’t be taking any more of it, though I know he does from time to time-”</p><p>“Shut the hell up,” Alex hissed.</p><p>Ben cleared his throat, spared his brother a glance. “Alex is suffering from brain damage.”</p><p>Alex’s face went florid. “You God-damned bastard-”</p><p>“His frontal lobe has portions - small, minute portions - which have died. Cell death.”</p><p>“Frontal lobe is decision making.” Castle stared at his older brother. “And conscience.” Oh, God. </p><p>“Don’t think I don’t already fucking know that, thank you very much, Benjamin Hunt, you damn traitor.”</p><p>“That’s why the foul mouth,” Colin muttered, glancing at Castle with a roll of his eyes. But it wasn’t not true. That was why their suddenly smooth-talking, charming brother had degenerated so much.</p><p>“I can usually control it better,” Alex muttered bitterly. “That damn... what a father, am I right? What a - bastard. And here we are, calmly talking about our own terrible demise. Richard, you perfect specimen, you better do right by the Wonder Twins. God help me, you’re the only one of us who will be left alive after Colin eats his fucking gun.”</p><p>The whole room was silent, as dead cold and quiet as it felt inside his chest.</p><p>Like everything was blanketed in snow.</p><p>And then Castle roused, sliding his hand over her knee to bring her back with him. “Kate’s not dying. It’s not her demise we’re talking about. Ben. What do you need?”</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Chapter 25</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had become entirely apparent that even if Castle was a perfect specimen, there was something seriously wrong with him too.</p><p>"Rick," she murmured, squeezing his hand at her knee. "I think what they're saying is that this is rather inevitable-"</p><p>"No," he shouted, turning on her. To her. "No." Quieter, but no less intense. "It is not inevitable. There are - all of us. All of us here to figure this out, to work on this, to get it right and wean you off it. Ben-" He cast a wild look to his brother and her heart broke for him, for how vitally he needed her. She'd done that to him, put him in her pocket like a pet wolf, and now it was breaking him. "Ben, you never tried to wean yourself off this shit, did you?"</p><p>"Well. No. I wanted to be smart. To be something at all. So - rehab, no. Never did that."</p><p>"And neither did Alex, of course, neither of them wanted to quit. But you're quitting. You won't be taking it any longer. And they've had it their whole lives. Since they were kids. It's only been three years. It can change - things can change."</p><p>"Some things can't be changed," she said very softly, cradling his hand in hers. "Some things are permanent." Like holes, cell death in the brain. </p><p>"This isn't permanent," he growled. "Ben will help figure it out. Ben-"</p><p>"I'm going to try."</p><p>"Try isn't good enough," he yelled. "Don't fucking talk to me about try. You've had fifteen years to fuck around with this. And when you saw what it was doing to Alex's brain, you got him off it, didn't you? Didn't you? And he takes it anyway because it makes him fucking special, the charming boy."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"So it's not about fucking try."</p><p>"No, it's a lot more substantial than dumping her with chemicals and attempting mitochondrial grafts, you're right about that."</p><p>She watched some of his wildness ease, but his hackles were still up, ready to defend her to anyone. She'd done this to him, made him crazy about her, actually crazy, sucked him down into her darkness. </p><p>"Rick," she murmured, trying to get him alone in the middle of a crowded room. "Hey, baby, look at me."</p><p>"No," he growled, shutting his eyes.</p><p>Her chest was breaking open. "Baby, please, just look at me for a second."</p><p>"Don't say it. You stop saying it. You are not dying. I won't let you die."</p><p>"Okay," she got out. "Okay, I'm not dying. Some kind of miracle at the last minute will save us all."</p><p>He choked on a noise that might have been a laugh, but it wasn't. "Don't fucking joke about it. It's not funny."</p><p>"It's not funny," she said softly. "But do you think I went through all of this just to sit down and die?"</p><p>His eyes flared open, his hope so vibrant it was - all through her. She couldn't help but feel it, shared by that connection they had.</p><p>And feeling it, she couldn't help believing it either, some part of her swayed by the force of his love for her.</p><p>"No," he said. "No, not after everything. You're the strongest person I know."</p><p>"She's the scariest person," Anne spoke up. "And you, Prince Charming." She rounded on Alex. "Holes in your brain. What the fuck."</p><p>"We'll need an MRI for Kate," Ben said, overriding Anne's lover's spat. "And a few other diagnostic tests done. We have a lab for that - but I'm not the medical professional. That's Alex."</p><p>Kate's hope shriveled and shrank to nothing, dust in the wind. "No."</p><p>"No," Castle said.</p><p>"He's what we have," Ben answered. "He's the doc. He's done the tests before-"</p><p>"Who did them on him?"</p><p>"Our father."</p><p>"No," Kate got out. "No. I can't. I won't. You don't want me to die? Then don't fucking put me in a room with him and those machines."</p><p>"We need an MRI to see how extensive the damage is." Ben shrugged. "It does bad shit to all of us. So."</p><p>"Kate," Eastman said from the other side of Castle. "We'll put people in the room with you."</p><p>"No," Castle snapped. "It's final. Not him. Not her. Let someone else do the MRI."</p><p>"There is no one else," Ben said calmly. </p><p>"There are doctors all over this damn city," Castle spat out. "There are fucking MRI machines all over this city. Don't tell me he's the only one."</p><p>"A diagnostic MRI requires a doctor's order," Ben started-</p><p>"So get Alex to order it," Castle shouted.</p><p>But Kate felt that worm of fear in her brain, that worm of dueling fears that dug those holes - she could be crazy before she knew it, actually insane, her inhibitions gone, her conscience wiped out. She had already stabbed Castle - she had stabbed him, intending to do him fatal harm - oh, God, she had tried to kill him.</p><p>"Castle," she croaked, interrupting his heated argument with his brothers.</p><p>He gripped her hand harder, turned with a negative on his lips before she could even say it. "You are not going to be examined by him."</p><p>"An MRI," she said, throat dry. She tried again. "He's not even in the same room."</p><p>"Fuck no. I know what an MRI is, I've had a thousand. You are not going in that little damn tube with the fucking crashing noises and having to stay still while he sits behind a glass window and speaks to you through a microphone all disembodied voice-"</p><p>"Stop," she cried out. "Stop, stop. You're too much. That's too much-"</p><p>"See?" he snarled. "You're not doing it."</p><p>Ben spoke up. "What if it's your voice on the other end?"</p><p>Kate opened her eyes, glanced to Castle. He looked murderous. She closed her hand around his bicep. "You do it. You be the one behind the glass."</p><p>"No," he rasped, turning pleading eyes back to her. "I won't - be part of that. Not - what they did to you, what I've already let them-"</p><p>"You didn't let them," she snapped. "You weren't there. Stop. I'm asking you to be there for me, bethere for me, and you won't?"</p><p>"Kate," he cried.</p><p>"You came with me to the OB, you held my hand. I could never have done that without you."</p><p>"Kate." He shook his head. "This isn't the same. This is another damn test - this isn't a doctor doing a standard - this is my fucking brother who has been doing this all along. It's not the same. It matters. Get a guy at NY General. Anyone else."</p><p>"They see damage and they have to refer her," Ben warned.</p><p>Eastman joined in. "They're going to ask for a complete medical background. They're going to ask about her blackouts-"</p><p>"I can't kill you," she blurted out, crashing forward into him, clutching his shirt. "I've already tried. I'm going to do it again. I can - feel it. There's something wrong."</p><p>"No," he growled, his arms so fierce and tight around her it was like he could hold her together. "There is nothing wrong with you. It's just a damn imbalance, and we are going to fix it. Your brain is fine. You're not-"</p><p>Ben cleared his throat. "You don't know unless you get her an MRI. Then we have a starting place."</p><p>"I won't let him do this to you again-"</p><p>"He's dead," she whispered, pressing her nose against his warm skin. "He's dead. He's dead-"</p><p>"Of course, baby, of course he is. He's dead." Castle cupped the side of her face and hid her in him. "He's dead."</p><p>"He can't do anything to me."</p><p>"No, honey, no. He can't touch you. I won't let anyone-"</p><p>"Just an MRI," she said tightly. "And you'll be the voice in my head. In that tube. It'll be you."</p><p>"Kate."</p><p>"If I'm crazy, we should know now. Before I hurt - you. The boys. Before I can't help it-"</p><p>"You're not."</p><p>Ben leaned forward, breaking into Kate's line of sight to get in his brother's face. "Stop burying your head in the sand, Richard. You did it once already, we all did. All of us except for Colin. Give her a fighting chance."</p><p>"God damn you," he husked. His grip at her head was tight, brutal, and at least it kept her there. No sliding away, no whiting out when he was so intensely here with her. He kept her here. "Damn it. Kate."</p><p>"Please."</p><p>His breathing was ragged, his body iron around her; she couldn't see anyone else. No one could touch her with him here. "Ben, you're in that room with us. And Carrie. I want Carrie there. She knows as much as - the rest of us."</p><p>Eastman made a sharp, unhappy noise, and Kate realized that Castle had just outed the one person Ben and Alex hadn't known about. Though they must have known there had to be someone taking care of the boys right now.</p><p>"She's in that room. If Kate needs an MRI, in a fucking tube for an hour or more, then Carrie is in that room watching with us."</p><p>"Fine," Eastman gritted out. "Katie?"</p><p>She nodded, couldn't get her throat to open enough to say the word that would put her back there.</p><p>"I don't like this," Castle growled. To everyone, the whole room. "Kate's right. The program is shut down. As of today. Everyone is being weaned. Everyone. Alex. Ben-"</p><p>"No," Ben said. "You do that, and I'm not smart enough to figure this out."</p><p>"So figure out a way to make yourself stable. You're the fucking genius. But this is done. Production is done. Colin will make sure of it."</p><p>"Way to put a target on my back, brother, thanks."</p><p>"I don't fucking care," Castle snarled. "We did this. We fucked with this. And we end it."</p><p>"There are consequences," Alex started, but Anne hushed him with a slap to his chest, a glare that iced him out.</p><p>But Ben wasn't ready to hear it. "There are consequences - he's right. It's not just the people who were looking into our research and will want their money back. There are consequences for us right here in this room. You can't blow us off, Richard, just because you're stable."</p><p>"I can. I am. I'm ending it."</p><p>"No. We have what you need. I won't help her if you won't help me."</p><p>"You refusing to help her?" Castle said, his voice cold and flat. "Then I'll put a bullet in your brain. Alex next. Because this ends. No more of this godforsaken nightmare. This is a nightmare. Do you not see that? This is wrong in the most awful, violating way. We don't end this now, here and now, we will rationalize our way right back into it."</p><p>Ben was silent, jaw working, and Kate knew - suddenly and horribly - that had been their game. Their plan. Rationalize. Get Castle and Colin on board with the need, the immediate need, and play it out for years. String them all along with half recoveries and near-misses. Keep making the wrong choice for the right reasons - like putting her inside that tube for an MRI with Alex at the controls.</p><p>"You can't end it," Ben said. "We need it. And you don't know the half of what was going down."</p><p>"We've already taken out eight of his installations, and Alex was kind enough to let me in our father's office yesterday. I have everything else we need to shut down the program. I have everything. I don't need your permission. No one else will go through this, no one else will be taking a fucking hit of elixir as damn science experiment. Not even my sons. Do you understand me? Not even them. It's over."</p><p>Everything drained right out of her, sapped her body of all its strength so that she was boneless against his chest, done. </p><p>It was done. It was over. It ended with her. Dead or alive, this was done.</p><p>-----</p><p>“No,” she murmured to him. “No, you’re right.” She was shaking, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap himself around her and press her against the wall. As it was, they had almost no time, no privacy, catching a moment just outside Alex’s bathroom, just the two of them.</p><p>Castle reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I just-”</p><p>“I don’t want that life for them, Castle.” She shivered violently and crossed her arms over her chest, but she looked at him with determination. “That’s why I did - everything I did. I won’t have them chained to the elixir for the rest of their lives. Even if-” She swallowed and closed her eyes a moment. “Even if it means cutting short their lives.” She let out a shaky breath. “You and I have both seen what it does to people. What that life looks like. Even if you’re perfect.”</p><p>He hated the way they all kept throwing that word around. “I’m no perfect,” he muttered. “In fact, might be good for me to get an MRI as well. And - the boys. Much as I hate to even-”</p><p>“The boys?” she said sharply. “But you said-”</p><p>“Yeah, but what the fuck do I know? Everything I did for you, giving you a shot like that, it was the exact wrong thing to do. I’d just feel better if we knew.”</p><p>“But you are - perfect, right? I mean, that’s why those boys survived...”</p><p>“I’m stable,” he stressed. “I had a fucking terrible time when I was young. But it stabilized over time. I just accepted that this was how it went, Kate. I didn’t ask questions. Now I want to ask. I want to see just what the fuck has been done to me. And to you. And the boys.”</p><p>“I don’t want the boys part of this anymore,” she said, tilting her head back against the wall. “An MRI as a kind of check-up is... that’s one thing. But after that. We’re not sticking them with needles and fucking around with this.”</p><p>“No,” he said. “No. I promise.”</p><p>“But you... if you need-”</p><p>“I don’t,” he said quickly. “There’s nothing in it that I need. That’s true.”</p><p>“Colin gave you that second shot when I - when I hurt you.”</p><p>Castle sighed and put his shoulder to the wall near her. At some point, Eastman was going to come looking for Kate; the guy had taken the role of guardian to heart. She could barely go to the bathroom without Mark circling. “Kate, honey, I was - would have - no one can survive that without immediate emergency intervention. It’s about the clotting - the structures my blood cells build are filled with complex architecture. Needs the base materials to do the building, right? So the shot is like a booster, gives me enough of those building blocks to keep me going.”</p><p>She nodded, looking like was she seriously taking in that information, but he could tell she was upset by the dying part of things.</p><p>He couldn’t quite find the explanations that would ease her mind, because weren’t they all going out on a limb when it came to this life? And they were making that decision for the boys.</p><p>For Alex and Ben too.</p><p>“No,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “You and me, Kate, we have to agree on this. We have to see this through to the end. Whatever end that is. Colin has known for years that we have to do something about the program our father created. But now - now it’s so damn clear just how fucking horrific-”</p><p>“You and me,” she said tightly. “We won’t back down on this.”</p><p>“We won’t,” he said with relief. “The thing is that the more I think about it, the more I start seeing scenarios in my head about the boys, about you, those what ifs-”</p><p>“You,” she said tightly. “If I can’t be - helped. I won’t - no. I won’t let it get to that.”</p><p>Castle spotted Eastman at the end of the hallway and straightened up. “Ready to go back in there?” he murmured. “You don’t have to unless you-”</p><p>“I’m ready.” She shivered again and turned her shoulder into him, her face lifting to his. “We’re all making this plan, you know? That makes it better somehow.”</p><p>“Because it’s not just being dictated to you,” he said softly. He cupped her shoulder and drew her into him. “Your informed consent.”</p><p>“Yeah,” she said, nodding against his chest. “I think I just... it helps that I just know. I know what the plan is.”</p><p>“Damn, you kill me sometimes,” he said roughly, hugging her. “Coming out with this stuff and somehow I forget - how in the fuck do I forget this?”</p><p>“I’m glad you can,” she murmured. “I wish I could.”</p><p>And that killed him too. He buried his face in her neck and sighed. “I want to take you back to the hotel and touch you until you forget.”</p><p>She shivered and wrapped her arms around his neck. “That’s the only time I feel...”</p><p>“Hopeful,” he gave her, kissing her jaw before he made himself release her. “Dad’s down the hall, tapping his foot and frowning. Better let you go.”</p><p>She laughed a little, turned to look. “We have - good people, you know? Good people around me. That helps too.”</p><p>-----</p><p>There would be a full round of MRIs tomorrow morning, beginning with Castle, then herself, the boys if they could - if she could handle that, and they could get them to be still without drugging them (she was certain she could, so long as she herself kept it together) - and then Colin, Ben, and Alex at the last.</p><p>Family affair. The last were to prove the statements Ben had made so baldly about what was going on, and the others, Kate thought, were to make her feel less alone going into tomorrow. </p><p>She didn't mind feeling alone. She minded feeling exposed.</p><p>But a tube was contained, behind a door, and even though the noise masked whomever might be approaching, she had a whole range of people who would be out there to guard that door.</p><p>She didn't always like being contained, trapped - she definitely didn't - but safe from Alex seemed an entirely different kind of contained. She could endure. She would endure. And then the boys would be cajoled inside...</p><p>She just had to stop thinking about it. She needed to remain neutral so that the boys had a shot at remaining calm tomorrow. It mattered how she felt - it mattered to them. And Castle too. And so she was just going to have to do it. That was life.</p><p>Walking away from Alex's building, out on the sidewalk with a million other people, it was comforting to have this wall between her and them. Castle was at her side, and though she was on pace with him, their shoulders brushed every time they had to jostle for room in the rush hour pedestrian traffic. And then just beyond Castle were Colin and Eastman who formed a kind of buffer ahead and behind, so that she knew what was coming and knew she was covered, and to have that-</p><p>To have this wall of family. Not of her own making, but made for her, around her. </p><p>She had to be equal to it, somehow. She didn't know how exactly, how to deserve it, but she had to at least make it not quite so damn difficult. And with Castle, that brush of his shoulder alone opened her up. Like a bomb down a mine shaft. Blowing her wide open so that she felt messy and raw, but also - clean. Fresh air down here inside her dark heart, a chance to breathe cleanly.</p><p>His hand was brushing her thigh at every other step, naturally at first, and then purposefully, because he liked to touch. And she didn't mind the fact that he needed her constant input to feel reassured of her. It seemed a very small price to pay for the chance to breathe.</p><p>For a chance. At all. </p><p>They turned as a unit into Central Park, and once under the trees and off the main path with its teems of people, the quiet and the solitude rushed in and blanketed her. She relaxed, and she took his hand, and they weren't quite such a battle formation and more just a group in tune with each other.</p><p>She had to protect this. It was all her sons had, all Castle had, this right here. Connection, feeling, support, help. A family. It didn't look like her own, it wasn't her parents and their small apartment and the fire escape where she dreamed. But it was good and beautiful in ways she had not even dared to hope for those boys. And she could so easily destroy this, ruin everything, if she was already damaged by the elixir. If she had already turned.</p><p>She wouldn't do that. She knew already - if that MRI tomorrow showed holes, showed damage, she would finish the job. She would go now, before it got bad, when she still had - still knew, and could somewhat control herself. She would leave them, but she would leave them with their daddy, leave them with each other before she could turn them, poison them, as she had done so easily to the people in that place.</p><p>She would ask Colin. She was sure he would see the wisdom in stopping her, but more, he would understand how - how some things couldn't be trusted when so much precious, so much that was precious rested in the balance. He would pretend not to know, but he'd acquire things for her. He'd... morphine. He had drugs; the drugs helped him. It didn't have to be dramatic; she didn't want to leave images behind for-</p><p>For Castle. She didn't want it to be him that found her, but if it was peaceful, and if she just slept. If she just slept and never woke up-</p><p>"Hey, there they are," he breathed beside her. And then lifted his voice and called out to their sons on the playground and her heart lifted with it.</p><p>He already loved them; they already loved him. It was so much more than she had asked for, so much greater than she had expected to leave them with.</p><p>She had done what she had set out to do. And tomorrow-</p><p>Well, after tomorrow, she could stop.</p><p>-----</p><p>The playground was in full sun, but the benches had spots of shade so that when he looked at her, her face was dappled and shifting with light. She looked beautiful. After everything this morning and the terror that awaited tomorrow, just looking at Kate in the sunlight and shadows made his heart hurt and his pride blossom.</p><p>She was - beyond his understanding.</p><p>On their walk here, she had somehow layered a kind of peace around herself so that she was almost untouchable. He had seen Zen practitioners in China meditate like this - centering down on one thought to the exclusion of all else, serene in their unperturbed natures. He'd seen her blank, and slide away from him, but this was being fully and most assuredly here.</p><p>She was here in ways he - ways he didn't know. Pieces of her not locked down but offered up to the god of the day and his altar of sunlight. </p><p>He kept looking back to her over his shoulder. He stood at the base of the slide and caught each boy as he giggled down the halting orange plastic tube, and then he swung the boy into the air and made him giggle again. Whichever boy it was, didn't matter, they were equally enthusiastic about the slide.</p><p>But just like Castle couldn't stop watching her, looking at her, wanting her, the boys circled her too, coming back again and again, beaming smiles and dirty faces, sweaty boys with their shirts stained and their hands grabbing. She spoke to them and cupped their cheeks, she kissed their foreheads and ruffled their hair, she laughed. She was most vitally here and she had built some kind of wall around all of them to do it.</p><p>James kept calling for her. Calling her name and leaning out, coming back to the bench to wrap his arms around her legs. So she got up with him and settled them both in a kid-sized swing, and while James clutched her with his legs sticking out the back, she pumped hers and swung them higher and higher, her arms laced over James's back and clutching the galvanized metal chains.</p><p>Castle caught Wyatt as his shoes got hung up on the plastic and his body pitched forward too sharply, caught his son before he could tumble face first into the mulch. He turned and watched James with Kate, watched Kate with James, and Wyatt, who had been scared a little by his near-tumble, stayed close to Castle and watched as well.</p><p>She turned, because she felt their eyes on her, and the look on her face - how it filled him, how it made him ache with her, with her, and he didn't know why exactly, because she was smiling. She was smiling and waving her fingers at Wyatt, and her hair was streaming around her face and the sun had baptized the whole scene with such gorgeous bright light, but he ached.</p><p>Deep. A deep ache.</p><p>And she was everything.</p><p>-----</p><p>"No, we're fine," she assured Carrie. The woman seemed reluctant to let them go, whether it was the boys or Kate was impossibly to tell, but Kate held James by the hand and let her confidence flow out to them. "The zoo is calling our names."</p><p>"If you're sure," Carrie hedged. She glanced back to Eastman, who was trying to take her by the hand and lead her off. They were going to dinner together, and Kate wanted them to be able to do that, especially with what happened tomorrow - Carrie had to be briefed, and maybe convinced. </p><p>"I'm sure. I do have Castle," she said softly, smiling over at him as he growled and chased Wyatt around the bench. "Despite appearances, he's very helpful."</p><p>"Hey, now," Castle called, lifting from his crouch to defend himself. Wyatt collided into his shins, giggling, and Carrie seemed to relent.</p><p>"Well, okay. I guess we're going. You boys have fun at the zoo."</p><p>Kate nudged James with her knee. "Say bye to Carrie. Huh, baby? Say bye-bye."</p><p>"Hi!" James beamed up at Carrie.</p><p>They all laughed, and Kate combed her fingers through his curly-sweaty hair. "That works, that's just fine." She took the hug that Carrie claimed, found herself taking a deep breath of the woman's scent - horses and hay and apple blossoms, even this far from the farm.</p><p>Carrie would teach the boys to love the animals. Carrie would take Wolf, or maybe Castle would want the dog close, the thing they'd rescued together. Maybe so. Everything falling into place.</p><p>"What's wrong, Kate?" Carrie whispered, hugging her harder.</p><p>"Nothing," she breathed. "Nothing is wrong at all. How can it be?" She smiled as Carrie pulled back, her hand in James's little hand, the boy with his head tilted back looking between them. "It's beautiful out here. And we're going to the zoo."</p><p>She shrugged at Carrie and the woman finally stepped back, found Wyatt to press into a hug, and then their company was splitting up. Colin had gone on to do spy things at the lab where Alex and Ben had the MRI machine and their set-up, and the Eastmans were going to dinner so Mark could fill Carrie in, and so Kate had suggested it.</p><p>The zoo.</p><p>Castle straightened up and swung Wyatt into his arms, so she leaned over and did the same with James, just to keep him from feeling left out. And maybe because he liked to curl in against her, liked to feel his skin to her skin, and she loved that. She would carry this feeling with her forever - to the end. </p><p>Castle's free hand came to the nape of her neck, stroking at her hair. "Hey, what're you thinking?" he murmured. He was guiding them back towards the way they'd come, heading for the zoo. "Interesting look on your face, honey."</p><p>"My mom," she murmured. "If she had moments like this with me and my dad. Just. When you're a teenager you don't want to hear about when you were a baby, you know? Now I wish I had shut up and let my mom tell me those stories."</p><p>"Are you a lot like her?" He shifted Wyatt higher on his chest and the boy tilted his head back, raising an arm to try to catch the low-hanging leaves. "I mean, are you guys the same?"</p><p>"I think more than I wanted to be," she said, giving him a wry look. "Yeah. A lot alike."</p><p>"Then she had these moments," he said with a nod, a hand bracing Wyatt's back to keep him from toppling out of his arms. "She felt this too. Holding you in her arms and going to the zoo for the first time. The sunlight and how - how it all seems perfect even when nothing is right at all."</p><p>Kate's breath caught.</p><p>"Ah, shit," he whispered. "Didn't mean to make you cry."</p><p>She shook her head and untangled an arm from James to catch Castle's forearm, dragging his hand away from her neck so she could hold it, hold him, lace their fingers together. "No, not crying. Not today." She let out her breath. "Thank you."</p><p>He smiled back at her and squeezed her hand. "Anything." His face flickered with something and his shrug felt studied, too purposeful. "I mean. Sorry. I told myself I wouldn't do this to you, but, I can't seem to help it. I love you. I will do anything for you, just as - you saw back there. Anything."</p><p>She let the seriousness of his feeling wash over her, let herself take the hit, realized she was still standing. Still upright.</p><p>She took her hand back to support James, shifting him on her hip so she could let go again and reclaim that connection. Castle let out a breath and clung to her hand once more.</p><p>"Take us to the zoo, Castle. That's what I want."</p><p>He seemed relieved to be off the subject, his head nodding, throat bobbing, and she had the sudden stupid insight that he would cry for her.</p><p>He would be very sad for her. Over her.</p><p>Those lines of laughter she'd seen creasing his eyes, they would fall back to grief because of her.</p><p>But only for a little a while. Only for a season. And then the boys would be able to make him laugh again, wrestling and chasing and playing in the park.</p><p>The boys would make him laugh again.</p><p>-----</p><p>ok I am going to skip the zoo parts<br/>and head them home<br/>suffice it to say they have a wonderful time<br/>they act like a little family<br/>peeps keep telling them they have a beautiful family and such well-behaved boys<br/>etc etc<br/>they make out in the snake house</p><p> </p><p>-----</p><p>“Let’s get a cab,” she murmured to him. </p><p>Castle turned back to her, this woman who had spent the last three hours right at his side, chasing after their sons, laughing, touching him like the last few days had never happened. They had a boy each, Wyatt already asleep in his arms, James with his head against her shoulder and his eyes drooping.</p><p>“Yeah,” he told her. “Very good idea.” He was faintly surprised she’d brought it up, gone against his power stride through Central Park to stop him and suggest something different. </p><p>He followed her down the path and through the trees to a strip of lawn that bordered 65th Street Transverse. Kate glanced left and then right to the exit, started heading that direction as she scanned the traffic for an open taxi.</p><p>She had to be magic, absolutely magic, because right at the corner of 65th and Fifth Avenue was a cab slowing to a stop and letting someone out. Kate darted forward, moving fast for a woman carrying a heavy boy, and Castle picked up his pace to reach her. She was offering her thanks to the man who had exited and held the door for her, and when Castle approached, the man gestured as if to say, your turn, and walked off.</p><p>Kate was already sliding into the backseat, and he marveled at how natural she was in the urban environment. She had threaded her way through the crows with ease, she had found ways to cut through the lines, she hailed a taxi and sank inside with a grace that seemed impossible.</p><p>All undaunted, unfazed. </p><p>“Hurry, baby,” she said. “Traffic is backing up. They’re not supposed to stop here.”</p><p>He got his feet in, Wyatt still out like a light and drooling against his shoulder. He had barely closed the door when the cab driver took off, tearing around the corner and speeding towards the Hyatt.</p><p>Kate chuckled and swayed into him, untangling James’s fingers from her hair. Castle braced his feet in the floorboards to give her some support, and she stayed nestled into his side, leaning on him as she sat James on her lap.</p><p>“Are babies supposed to have car seats?” she said, glancing at him.</p><p>“Not the law here,” Castle answered. “And he doesn’t seem concerned.”</p><p>Kate gave a raise of her eyebrow as if that was hardly a good measurement. </p><p>He shrugged. “I have fast reflexes. So do you, for that matter. We’ll be their seatbelts.”</p><p>She seemed content with that - it was the truth after all - and she sat willingly at his side, playing some kind of game with James that involved tracing his face with her fingers and pretending they were falling into his opening, giggling mouth.</p><p>At the Hyatt, Castle got out first and reached back for Kate, but she was already climbing out of the cab. He paid with cash and guided her inside the hotel, nodding to the doorman as they passed through. He had the boys’ bag on his shoulder and Wyatt like a sack of rocks against his chest, but Kate hummed and whispered to James all through the lobby, making him grin and turning the heads of everyone in the vicinity.</p><p>She was beautiful, yes, but more than that, she was magnetic. Alluring. She drew every eye, and caused not a few indulgent or wistful smiles. </p><p>He felt proud to have her go before him, proud she was the mother of his sons. Proud that she had chosen him after everything, had asked him to be at her side.</p><p>He was still just - so impressed with her. Every time he turned around, the things he expected to knock her down, to bring her to her knees, instead she made them into strengths. She wrapped it around her like a cloak and wore it with dignity and grace - and a fierce power that burned in her eyes.</p><p>Today - this morning - had been rough. And tomorrow was promising to be brutal. And yet Kate Beckett was a queen, approaching the day with charm, with kindness, with such nobility that it choked him up.</p><p>He wanted to lay her down in their bed and worship. Every secret place, every bold line, every contour and beauty of her body - and soul.</p><p>She turned at the bank of elevators, gave him a hurry up gesture that he obeyed. He stepped up to her just as the doors slid open and let loose a crowd of patrons, and she reached for him and caught his hand, tugged him after her into the car.</p><p>He stood behind her with his back to the wall, the railing digging into his hip, and he circled his free arm around her, supporting James in her embrace. She turned and touched her lips to his cheek in gratitude, and they stayed like that as the elevator ascended, just the two of them, Wyatt at her back in his arms, and James carried like a baby kangaroo.</p><p>“Love,” he sighed at her temple. “Been a good day, hasn’t it? I don’t know how you managed to pull that off, but after everything, it’s been a really wonderful day.”</p><p>“I’m so glad,” she whispered, tilting her chin back. “I’m - so grateful.”</p><p>His heart twisted at the forlorn sound in her voice, but all he could do was hold her tighter - and then let her go when the elevator stopped on their floor.</p><p>-----</p><p>“I don’t mind,” she whispered. “Sit down, Rick. Sit with me. With us. Like we did that first time when-”</p><p>He didn’t need to be told twice. She laughed a little as he crawled into bed behind her, kicking off his shoes and settling at her back. He drew his heels up to her ass, giving her a seat between his knees on the mattress, and she leaned against his chest with James in her arms.</p><p>Wyatt was at the foot of the bed, asleep, but she wanted to nurse them both. She was going to take her time with it, let them nuzzle into her with their sleep-clumsy mouths. </p><p>Castle’s broad hand came to James’s head, cupping his skull. “Like this?”</p><p>“Yeah,” she breathed. “Help me with the bra?”</p><p>He hummed approval at her crown; she smiled and squirmed as he traced his fingers across the lace of her bra. Her nipple puckered and began to leak, and Castle unhooked the little triangle and drew the flap down. </p><p>Together they positioned James at her breast and the boy opened his mouth like a baby bird and latched on. He made a deep, contented sound when her milk letdown, and he rooted into her, wanting closer.</p><p>“Alright, alright, little man,” Castle whispered, drawing James tighter to her chest. </p><p>With Castle cradling him, Kate could  drop her own hold on the baby, use her fingers to trace every dimple of skin and soft smooth line. He smelled like sweat and sun and faintly of petting zoo pellets, those bran and fiber things they’d bought to feed the goats.</p><p>“He smells like goats,” Castle laughed.</p><p>She grinned and tilted her head back, bared her teeth at Castle’s neck. “Only a little.”</p><p>“Only a little,” he whispered, laughing again and kissing her jaw.</p><p>“Kiss me for real,” she said, nudging him away with a touch.</p><p>He lifted his head to find her mouth, came back down with a kiss that made her toes curl and her hips bump. James startled from her breast and let out a pitiful sound, overtired, and she broke from Castle’s mouth to settle down again.</p><p>Castle petted her hair down and she knocked her head into his chin to make him stop. James was sucking again, watching her with those blue eyes, grey blue, silvered like stars, and she leaned in over him and kissed the top of his head.</p><p>Inhaled the scent of him. How beautiful he smelled, goats and all. Out here in the world. No more antiseptic and air conditioning. Sunshine now. Sun and chlorophyll and dirt. Faint hint of that baby shampoo they’d bought, and below that the lavender shower gel.</p><p>“Get a good whiff of those goats,” Castle said. “Washing these boys down first thing in the morning.”</p><p>She laughed, noise caught in her throat as tomorrow loomed suddenly again. “Already tomorrow, isn’t it?”</p><p>“No,” he said, voice sobering. “It’s not. We have time yet.”</p><p>we have time yet</p><p>She wanted to kiss him again. Wanted to touch the soft skin behind his ear that made him shudder. Wanted so many things.</p><p>But first this. With James. She didn’t think there would be many more nightly feedings. No soft quiet darkness. After tomorrow-</p><p>The hotel would be a good place for it, no memories attached for them. She was afraid that just walking off and doing it alone would cause him to come after her, to go looking when she didn’t come back, and she didn’t want him to search for her the rest of his life, wondering. She didn’t want him to have to wonder.</p><p>The boys would be with Carrie this way too. They wouldn’t walk in on - anything. </p><p>James’s eyes fluttered open and he stared up at her.</p><p>“Wow,” Castle whispered. “He’s intense. Isn’t he?”</p><p>She nodded slowly, transfixed by his regard, the way he searched her as if-</p><p>“Wyatt adores you, loves you like you’re the best thing that ever happened to him, but look at James. James looks at you and...”</p><p>“What?” she rasped, staring down at the boy.</p><p>“No one else,” Castle sighed. “There’s no one else for him. You’re his everything.”</p><p>She didn’t want to cry.</p><p>She really - she couldn’t cry now. </p><p>She leaned in over James so she couldn’t see his gaze on her, and she kissed his forehead, the curls tickling her lips. And then she leaned back against Castle and closed her eyes, focused instead on the sensation of James at her breast, the sense of his intense regard rather than the sight.</p><p>“Oh, he’s falling asleep,” Castle murmured. “What a good boy.”</p><p>-----</p><p>She did the same with Wyatt - once Castle had managed to jostle the boy awake. The two of them close, skin to skin with his shirt off and her bra now entirely gone. Heat bloomed between them like that, but she stared down at Wyatt as if memorizing him. Every moment. Every breath.</p><p>She had done it in the park too, now that he had slowed down long enough to recognize it. Cupping a little face in her hands and kissing the boy, whichever boy it had been at the time, and how it had struck him then as indulgent and yearning.</p><p>He felt it. Here now, with their skins heating and her heartbeat slow and comforting against him within the cage of her ribs. </p><p>Wyatt made faces at her and flicked his fingers over her breast and wriggled, laughed up at her with the silliness of exhaustion, the milk spilling out of his mouth. Kate soaked him in, cooing at him, loving him, stroking her fingers in his hair and covering him with her hands while Castle held the boy.</p><p>He didn’t understand it. Except this was their time, the only time they’d had together in the facility, and it meant something. It brought back memories, he was sure, and he wouldn’t interrupt for the world.</p><p>When Wyatt had played more than nursed, when he seemed full and happy and snuggling in against Kate’s chest, Castle slowly eased him away. Kate sat forward and he brought Wyatt to the side; their movements had an ease of practice and instinct, one always knowing where the other would be.</p><p>He slid off the bed and stood with Wyatt, rocking the boy very softly to keep him sleepy while Kate blinked up at him with a haze of something soft in her eyes.</p><p>“We make a great team,” he whispered, smiling at her. “Partners. You should come to team practice with me. It’s like laser tag. We’d wipe the floor with ‘em.”</p><p>She roused and frowned, shook her head. “Take him?” But she rose to her knees and leaned in, bracing herself against his hips to kiss the top of Wyatt’s head.</p><p>Castle hesitated, not sure what that look was on her face, but he waited only long enough for her to sink back to her heels before he moved for the door. He took Wyatt out into the hallway and next door to the Eastmans. When Carrie answered his soft knock, she took Wyatt from his arms, smiling and whispering that James was fast asleep.</p><p>He brushed two fingers down the boy’s nose and smiled. “Thanks. We’ll be next door.” Which she knew of course, but Carrie only smiled and carried Wyatt to the bed to sleep.</p><p>Castle went back to their room, knocking again on their door. It had become a thing, and she answered - shirtless, breasts free and loose, her hair around her face.</p><p>“Kiss me,” she husked, and launched herself into his arms.</p><p>-----</p><p>She was naked and writhing, desperate for more of him, her body stretched open on the bed. Castle growled a curse and pushed his fingers deeper inside her, and she arched and whimpered, clawing at his back.</p><p>“Come for me, Kate. Right now-”</p><p>She gasped and shattered, a home run ball through a window pane, everything beautiful and sharp and bright, cutting her.</p><p>Castle groaned and dragged his fingers through her sex, his mouth hot at her neck, her chest, her breasts. She couldn’t understand what he said but he talked constantly, all the time, urging her on.</p><p>She whimpered and shivered with the last of it, tugged on his shoulders to make him meet her. But he ignored her tug and continued down, pressing his nose to her belly button and inhaling hard.</p><p>She opened her eyes - just in time to watch him take a little bite of her belly, lick her navel as he traveled down again. She couldn’t help the way her knees pressed inward, against his shoulders, but he held her open with bruising fingers, put his mouth on her.</p><p>“Oh, God,” she gasped.</p><p>His tongue darted out, swiping through her, and she curled up, whining in her throat, and suddenly it was so desperate, everything was so desperate and painful and necessary that she couldn’t take it.</p><p>Kate clutched his head, found his ear, tugging hard, but he suckled her arousal from her sex, tongue pushing inside, not letting up. When his fingers stroked her slit and came down to nudge against her anus, she cried out, coming again in a harsh clutch of inner muscles, bearing down as if in labor.</p><p>He smeared his wet nose and lips against her stomach and crawled back up her body. His kiss was feral and dark, tasting of her, and she moaned into the assault of his tongue, the nip of his teeth.</p><p>“Fuck me,” she panted. “I need you so badly, Castle. Please.”</p><p>“I want to worship you,” he growled. His mouth was rough against her, his jaw bristling, abrading her skin as he came down to her breast.</p><p>“Oh, no,” she moaned, pushing on his face. “I can’t. I can’t-”</p><p>He ducked her fingers and latched on. She jerked and grabbed his head, vibrating with it. He suckled at her breast and her milk was weak but it came for him, filled his mouth so that he swirled it back against her nipple before swallowing. She could feel his throat working against her stomach and she keened, shuddering as the feelings rocketed through her.</p><p>His hands coasted up and down her sides, caressing her ribs, the underside of her breasts, his thumb nudging her free nipple and making that breast just as heavy as if she hadn’t nursed at all.</p><p>“Oh, God, oh, God,” she groaned, her body pressing up against him. How heavy he was over her, how he pressed her down. </p><p>His mouth on her breasts, drawing it out of her, suckling and intense and intimate. She was shaking when he finally lifted his hand, and he drew her hand down from her face and kissed her fingertips, the inside of her wrist.</p><p>“Let me show you how much your body wants.”</p><p>She whined, shivering, goose bumps erupting over her skin, but Castle was sitting upright and dragging her with him, his naked body so solid and wide, so thick everywhere. She palmed his erection, but he was arranging her against him as he sat back against the headboard, the same position they’d had when she’d been nursing the boys.</p><p>“No, no, open your thighs to me, sweetheart.” He spread her legs open so that her knees were out, and he rubbed his palms up and down her inside thighs. She was shivering all over, tension building rapidly, his chest hot at her back, sweat at her neck, between her breasts.</p><p>“Castle,” she husked.</p><p>“I love how you call for me.” He kissed her lightly against the side of her neck, letting his breath tickle her. </p><p>“I want your cock,” she whined.</p><p>“I want to touch you everywhere. Show you how much your body loves it, love the feeling of me, and how we come together.”</p><p>“I already know that,” she growled, restless against him. </p><p>“Do you know this?” He dragged the tip of his finger up the inside of her arm, barely skimming the outside of her breast before circling her shoulder.</p><p>“Ug, yes,” she hissed. She had meant to say so much more, something scathing, something about why couldn’t he just fuck her already, but he wetly kissed her shoulder and cupped her breast in his hand.</p><p>“And this?” His thumb brushed her nipple and it was electric. Electric. She could barely breathe.</p><p>“C-castle.”</p><p>“What about this?” His other hand came into play, light impossible touches along her inside thigh, circling her sex without touching at all.</p><p>“Oh, God, oh, please, I can’t-”</p><p>“You can. You’re very good at can.”</p><p>“Rick.”</p><p>He cupped her sex and she weeped, a sob in her throat and her arousal leaking out between his fingers. He hummed satisfaction in her ear and began to stroke lightly at her folds, opening her up.</p><p>“After a few orgasms, your clit likes to hide from me,” he murmured.</p><p>“How stupid,” she whined. “Oh, God. Why the hell would it do that?”</p><p>“It’s too much, over stimulated, it can’t.”</p><p>“Can, can, can,” she promised, pushing her hips up into his touch. He dug his elbow into her stomach in retaliation, keeping her down, and his fingers pinched violently at her nipple.</p><p>She groaned, relief cascading through her, but Castle immediately eased up, scratching his short nails at her nipple so that she was squirming again.</p><p>“You look beautiful, Kate. I meant to tell you that a hundred times today, but I thought it would lose its power if I said it all the time. I’m glad I waited until right this moment. With your body before me, spread open, flushed and pink and begging me.”</p><p>She whimpered, closing her eyes and pushing her hips back against him. No matter what she did, she couldn’t make him hurry, couldn’t break him.</p><p>She couldn’t break him at all.</p><p>His fingers slicked inside her.</p><p>Kate groaned, riding his hand, and he let her - let her work herself against him, up and up, chasing that next sensation, that ultimate climax. His teeth grazed the top of her shoulder and she knew he was watching her, and she couldn’t help opening her eyes to see it for herself.</p><p>Her thighs were marked by his jaw, rough red rashes that bloomed with the blood rushing just under her skin. His hand was between her legs, fingers wide and thick, and he handled her deftly for all that, no clumsiness in his touch. Her kinky hair curled and sprang up around his palm, and she could hear the sounds of her own wetness as she worked her hips up.</p><p>“Look at us, Kate, how you want anything I give you. How your sex is dripping for me, desperate for more, aching and wide like a mouth.”</p><p>“Oh, please, please, please-”</p><p>“Begging,” he husked. His mouth sealed over hers and his tongue filled her, filled her, touched nearly to her throat. She was choking on him, her sex slippery and burning where his fingers glided against her.</p><p>He lifted his mouth away from hers suddenly and his eyes scoured her body. “I know what I want to do with you. I know what happens next.”</p><p>“What?” she croaked. Cock, his cock, let it be his-</p><p>“My fist,” he mouthed at her neck. “My whole hand. Remember when you asked?”</p><p>“Oh, fuck.” She vibrated on the sound of his excitement in her ear and suddenly she was sparking up fast, her orgasm dirty and rigid, embarrassingly intense, but Castle-</p><p>Castle was pressing her back against the mattress and pushing three fingers inside of her.</p><p>Kate gasped, coming up on an arch as if to escape, hips crashing back down again only to find-</p><p>“Holy fuck, four fingers already,” he groaned. “I’m - fuck, Kate, fuck - I have to - I’m gonna come. Oh fuck.”</p><p>She peeled open her eyes just in time to see the hard shudder run through his body and feel his fingers curl inside her. She stiffened and cried out, but Castle cursed and ground his cock into her thigh, thrusting and rocking, rocking-</p><p>He orgasmed in a burst of thick come, hot against her skin, and his fingers hooked at the bone of her pelvis as if he wanted to drag her right down with him.</p><p>All four fingers. Widening her up so that her sex was like a wound, a terrible deep ache, and the feelings rushed in on her, pouring through her, and suddenly she was sobbing his name and coming hard, gushing over his hand.</p><p>-----</p><p>She was gasping.</p><p>As if the work of his hand somehow squeezed her lungs. </p><p>She arched and he went with her, keeping right with her, kissing the plane of her abs, licking the sweat that pooled in her belly button. Kate thrashed as if to get away, but he stayed right where he was, an arm slung under her back so that her hips were angled just right.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>She was so wet, the sound of his fingers inside her was fucking insane. </p><p>“That’s it, baby, that’s it. Feel that?”</p><p>“God.”</p><p>“You’re so tight,” he murmured, touching his lips to her hipbone. “I can feel you working around me, contracting around my fingers, trying to take more of me, trying to push me out.”</p><p>She whined, her thighs trembling. Her knee came up and knocked into his shoulder again, her body contorting as the waves of her pleasure began to crest.</p><p>“One more, Kate, honey. One more and I’ll slip my thumb inside and fist you.”</p><p>Kate shouted, her orgasm bursting inside her. He stroked with her, four fingers working her climax inside while he licked and suckled at her folds, flicking his tongue across her clit. Her thighs were fierce against his head, but he pressed her open with his elbows, kept at her.</p><p>“Please,” she begged. “Oh, God, oh-God, oh-God.”</p><p>As the last of her orgasm tightened around him, he turned his wrist and duck-billed his hand, slipping his thumb to her sex and pushing in.</p><p>Kate moaned, a deep sound that seemed dragged out of her body in response to his intrusion. He took a breath, his forehead dropping to her stomach, the intensity of being inside her like this, the fierce grip of her walls around him.</p><p>She was shaking, but so was he.</p><p>He stroked one finger, his middle finger, against the inside of her vaginal walls, soft strokes, feeling her inside. Kate mewled and her hips shimmied, her thighs fell open to him again. Light strokes, petting her there, deep inside her.</p><p>“Castle,” she moaned.</p><p>He pressed up on one elbow and came very slowly up her body, angling his hand inside her as he did. She was trembling, her thighs twitching, muscles shaking, but he pressed a kiss to her breast and breathed her name.</p><p>She whined and squirmed, into him, as if she wanted him deeper, and he felt her body clutch hard around him. “Oh, God, what are you doing to me?”</p><p>Her hips bucked and he reflexively tried to hang on to her - he didn’t mean to - but he made a fist inside her body as if to keep her with him, a fist that pressed against her walls and set her off all over again. </p><p>Kate screamed and orgasmed with violence, her body writhing, her legs twining around him, her nails digging into his back. Her orgasm went on and on, squeezing around his fist, pulsing, her skin flushing deep as her mouth opened wide.</p><p>Absolutely beautiful, and so far beyond anything he had ever witnessed that he worshipped at the glory of her body.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0026"><h2>26. Chapter 26</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She woke to his mouth over hers.</p><p>Woke. Came back. Found herself inside her body again.</p><p>Her eyes fluttered open and she groaned, felt turned inside out. “Castle,” she said, voice hoarse, breaking.</p><p>“Didn’t quite mean to do that, baby, you okay?”</p><p>“‘Kay,” she husked. “Good.” His mouth coasted her cheek and sipped at her skin, and she turned her head into his cheek. “Didn’t know.. could feel that way.”</p><p>“Never actually done that before, not like that.”</p><p>Her breath stuttered. She couldn’t think. Everything was scattered, rolling around in her body like she was on the ocean, floating in the waves.</p><p>“Thank you for - trusting me,” he murmured. His voice soothed even as his lips touched her forehead. </p><p>She hummed, intending to say something back but not finding it. She was so dazed that it was hard to put words together. Just this inside-out shock-and-awe. </p><p>“You really liked that,” he grinned. She could hear it, feel the turn up of his lips against her cheek. “I really liked doing that to you.”</p><p>She blinked slowly and dragged her hand up his back, her arm falling between them so that her fingers curled at his neck. He kissed her fingertips and then her lips, and she realized he was lying full on top of her.</p><p>“I’ll shut up now,” he whispered. “You sleep, baby.”</p><p>“On me,” she mumbled. She couldn’t manage to keep him, do anything. “‘Round me.”</p><p>“Yeah, love, hush. I’ve got you.”</p><p>“Hold me,” she sighed.</p><p>“Don’t even have to ask,” he breathed. His body shifted with hers, curled in around her from behind. Her skin was hot, sticky, loose like it might come away from her bones. She couldn’t keep her eyes open.</p><p>His thigh pushed between her knees and she groaned.</p><p>“No, no, I got you, baby. It’s okay.”</p><p>His arm came around her, tighter, and he tucked her in close. She felt her ribs and spine spreading out, her hips shifting in their sockets.</p><p>“You’re okay, honey. You’re just fine.”</p><p>She couldn’t feel her body. She was sinking into the mattress. She was so tired. His mouth touched her neck, her shoulder. She unfurled her finger and stroked the top of his bare knee. Hard, holding her together.</p><p>She was just beginning to fade when his soft words caught her ears. “Love you, sweetheart. Love you so much, my wild thing. Won’t let anyone touch you ever again.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Something was wrong.</p><p>He knew something was wrong because he was being dragged down into sleep, so hard, relentlessly. He struggled to stay awake for her, to be awake in case - anything - but he was crashing, he was crashing.</p><p>Something was wrong.</p><p>He was already dreaming, and he didn't dream. Never dreamed, he was dreaming her and her body above him but that wasn't right, that wasn't what was real, she wasn't above him, wasn't crying out ecstasy into the arch of her spine, oh how gorgeous, she was gorgeous and so beautiful. His warrior queen.</p><p>She fell back to him in the last of her pleasure, but when he gathered her against his chest, when he tried to draw his arms around, she was gone. Gone. Vanished into nothing. His skin hot where her ghost had been, his lips cold.</p><p>He laid in bed alone and turned his head, saw the stones of his turret room, the weak paint of light. He sat up and tried to remember if this was the dream or if she had been. Was that a faint trace of her scent, were his fingers silky with the lingering touch of her sex? </p><p>He was alone, and the sheets were tangled around his feet, and he was awake as he always was awake. He managed to pull his legs free and stand, and he swayed for an instant, a strange rush of blood in the wrong directions, his cock heavy and throbbing, his head too light.</p><p>Something was wrong.</p><p>She should be here. She wasn't a ghost. </p><p>Something was wrong.</p><p>He moved forward, answering a call unheard, unvoiced, but knowing. Knowing it was wrong, that the blood had left him, that something had left him. Something vital. He reached for the door knob to the bathroom and touched its shiny chrome and yet he couldn't open it.</p><p>For one heartbeat, he was afraid. </p><p>He did not want to go in. He did not want to see it, the missing thing, the terrible thing.</p><p>He turned to the bed but even her ghost was gone, no scent of her, no phantasm. </p><p>But a note.</p><p>Castle went cold. </p><p>A folded sheet of paper with his name on it at the bedside table, propped up with the phone he'd given her. Proof of her. Proof, but when he tried to move to take it, horror poured through him like water, horror drenching him.</p><p>He took up the note, and below it he saw two more, James and Wyatt in handwriting he didn't even know was her own because he'd never seen her write their sons' names and he was sinking back to the mattress and opening the note-</p><p>Rick,<br/>You have given me the world. And so much more. I hope I can somehow give it back to you now.<br/>When the boys are old enough, (or when you think it's right. I know you'll know when it's right) will you tell them I loved them? Will you tell them - I know you'll tell them the story. I don't have to ask. You're a good man, and I wish I could have been as good to you. I wish I could have been more for you.<br/>Even so. I am so in love with you.<br/>Kate</p><p>The letter fell, fluttering like a dying bird. He felt like that piece of paper, shaking, shaking as he raced back to the bathroom door, twisted the knob.</p><p>The bathroom door swung open and all he saw was blood.</p><p>Blood.</p><p>Currents and rivers, pools and streams. Blood spackled the tile and splashed over the rim of the bathtub. Blood in the water, inky and dark, clouds of blood. </p><p>And her body.</p><p>He keened her name and jerked forward, crashing to his knees beside the bathtub, grabbing her by the arms and hauling her up out of the water. But too late, too late, she was limp and lifeless, she was lifeless, the blood drained out all over the bathroom.</p><p>"No, no, no-" </p><p>He dragged her out of the tub, horrified by the massive wounds running straight up her arms, the gouges deep into her elbows, blood and tendons, her body split open. </p><p>"Oh, God. Kate. Kate-" he choked, his arms filled with the soaked hot wetness of her blood. Tangled in her fingers, like she couldn't let go, was the scalpel he'd given back to her. "Kate."</p><p>She was beyond saving, beyond him.</p><p>He clutched her body and sobbed, rocking on the tile floor, her beautiful, beautiful-</p><p>"Kate, Kate, oh God, oh God, no. Oh, baby, please don't do this. Please, honey, please don't do this."</p><p>But she was gone.</p><p>-----</p><p>She woke weeping.</p><p>Woke to tears tracked down her face and a grief that so touched and echoed her own that it was impossible to distinguish the actual shape of things at first.</p><p>And then she realized the tears were hers, but the sobbing was not.</p><p>Kate jerked upright in bed, cold as the air washed over her naked body, hard goosebumps rising up. Sobbing, violent terrible sobbing filled the room, and for a moment, she had to put a hand over her mouth just to check, to be sure it wasn't really her own sounds escaping.</p><p>Her cheeks were wet, her heart was twisting, but she wasn't crying.</p><p>Kate moved instinctually, feet sliding out of bed and throwing the covers off, only to hit flesh, hot and warm and hard flesh that made her drop to her knees on the soft carpet. </p><p>"Castle?"</p><p>He was rocking back and forth beside the bed, arms wrapped around his torso, body hunched as if in terrible pain. </p><p>"Rick," she breathed, reaching out to catch him by the shoulders. He keened and pressed forward, into her, falling right into her so that she was slammed back against the side of the bed, the frame digging painfully into her spine.</p><p>But he was burning up, and it warmed her enough to move her hands down and check him for wounds. The knife was on top of the dresser and he had been holding her down and she was so exhausted she couldn't imagine getting up to handle the blade, but maybe, maybe, and had she stabbed him again?</p><p>"Rick," she said, trying to call him back to her. "What hurts, what did I do?" She skimmed her fingers at his back and around his hips, the vulnerable abs, but she didn't feel blood, no torn flesh, no telltale wetness. "Rick, honey, what's wrong?"</p><p>He was sobbing. He was sobbing, and she felt his ragged breaths and his juddering cries, the grief that spilled out of him, poured of him and into her, that connection that had woken her crying. </p><p>He was asleep. He was asleep and dreaming? Sleepwalking, but - sleep sobbing. He wept. Like only a full grown man could weep, in that terrible urgency of violence and desolation.</p><p>"Rick, sweetheart, wake up. Wake up. It's a dream. Whatever it is, it's a dream. It's not real. Castle, honey, please." She cupped the back of his head and held him to her as she held the boys, though she'd never - she had never - had to hold them like this, with this kind of terror thrumming through both of them.</p><p>He sobbed her name and her scalp prickled, her efforts hastened. She opened her thighs and drew him closer, used the side of the bed for leverage to push back into him. She tightened her arm around his neck, the other bracing his back, and kissed his neck, his jaw, his ear. </p><p>"I'm here. I'm here. Castle, wake up. Wake up. Oh, love, please. Please." She ran her lips back and forth over his closed eyelids, squeezing him tighter, tighter, hoping to jolt him into awareness. "Please, baby, wake up."</p><p>There was a terrible shudder, his body wracked as he was yanked from one world to the other. He stiffened when he woke, coming up so hard that the top of his head smacked into her chin and all she could see were stars in the darkness.</p><p>Her name was a cry, Kate, and then he was rocking back and dragging her into his arms, his lap, encircling her so completely that her ribs were crushed.</p><p>She struggled for breath but didn't move, didn't push out of his embrace, just kept petting the nape of his neck and making those soothing noises she did for the babies. He shuddered and fell in around her, as if he had no strings to hold him up.</p><p>"Castle?" she whispered.</p><p>"Dream," he croaked. "Dream, dream, it was a dream."</p><p>"It was a dream," she echoed, but she heard the question in it. How could that have been a dream?</p><p>"Gimme a - minute," he choked out. </p><p>"Of course, baby," she whispered back. "You stay just right here. I've got you." She wrapped her legs around his waist and she pressed her body into his. "I've got you. You're okay. I won't hurt you."</p><p>He gave a strangled sob, seemed to drop heavier into her, and she really had to fight to force her lungs to open, to draw breath. She rubbed a palm up and down his back, her other arm around his neck and cupping the back of his skull, her skin pressed to his bare skin. Heat and flushed fever in his blood, and she could feel it rushing through his body.</p><p>He didn't seem to be able to come back from it. The more she touched him in the silence and quiet, in the dark of the bedroom, the more ragged his breathing, the more he seemed to lose his ability to leash his being. To lash himself back together.</p><p>She cleared her throat and touched her lips to his jaw. "Want to - talk about it?" she offered. "Maybe you should tell me about your dream."</p><p>He shivered and let out a little cry. "You were dead," he garbled. Rocks in his throat. "You were dead and I was too late, I couldn't stop you."</p><p>She froze. "Stop - me?"</p><p>His fingers clawed around her arm, painfully pressing into the nerve at her elbow so that her whole forearm went numb and buzzing. He drew back only far enough to look down at the pale skin that faintly glowed in the darkness. Like a ghost.</p><p>His lips touched the crook of her elbow. "Oh, God," he moaned. Lips traveled down the inside of her arm to her wrist and goose bumps erupted over her skin. He lifted his head and stared at her with eyes made black by grief. "Dreamed I found you. After you done it. After you - oh, God, I dreamed you killed yourself."</p><p>Kate flinched. </p><p>She tried to still the quail of her heart but he absorbed it all, everything, he saw everything. He saw her fumble to deny it. He saw she couldn't.</p><p>He took a gasping, ragged breath in. "No." His eyes grew to encompass her whole being, his grip on her arm so painful she was yanked back to the here, the now. "NO. God damn you, Kate. Don't you dare do that to me. Don't leave me."</p><p>He growled and crushed his mouth to hers as if he wanted to consume her, and she struggled but weakly, too weak and needy to fight him, and his kiss was desperate. She could taste blood, taste anguish, and they were old friends, they had been with her for so long, but from his lips and tongue they were so bitter.</p><p>"Don't leave me, don't leave me," he keened, mouth against hers, his voice filling the room. "Please. Please. I'll do anything. I'll do anything I - you can't. You can't." </p><p>He snapped again, mouth assaulting hers, tearing away from her lips to bite her neck, deep, her throat in his teeth as he sucked. He tongued the raw place and broke away, his hands coming up to hold her face, his fingers pressing into her bones, pressure.</p><p>She stared at him.</p><p>"I won't allow it," he hissed. "I don't. I refuse. You're not allowed. Do you hear me?" His voice rose till he was shouting. "Don't you fucking leave me alone."</p><p>Kate shuddered and closed her eyes. </p><p>He shook her, hard enough to snap her head back and her eyes to fly open, and she realized he was dragging them both upright, standing firmly with her trapped in his arms, but she wasn't moving, was she? She wasn't even trying.</p><p>He was yelling at her, squeezing her so hard she might break, and she couldn't fathom the effort to even stand on her own two feet.</p><p>And then the pounding came on the door, and Eastman's voice yelling through the hard wood, yelling their names.</p><p>-----</p><p>He was pulled roughly to an awareness by the pounding on the door and Eastman barking his name through the wood.</p><p>He couldn't let go of Kate. She was naked. She was closed down and naked and he was naked too and he felt like someone had shot him and he wasn't healing.</p><p>"Clothes," he said, turning blindly for the floor, for something. Kate stood there a moment and then dropped to his feet, a weird sensation of terrible arousal and horrific grief combined, but then she stood again, pulling her arms into his black t-shirt.</p><p>He had to let go of her arm. He still held her arm.</p><p>"Baby," she murmured, turning her face up to him. "Please, don't."</p><p>He dropped her elbow like his she burned, like he was burning her, and she pressed his pants into his hips.</p><p>"Richard!"</p><p>He had to get the door. He couldn't have her not - he had to grip her arm again, his chest ragged, shot through with gaping holes, and he dragged her to door with him. He yanked it open and Eastman, furious and loud, pushed through the open doorway.</p><p>"What the fuck are you in here doing to her-" Eastman ground to a halt so fast he fell against the entry hall. "Oh, God. You're crying. Richard. Why are you cr-naked?"</p><p>He had his pants in his fist, Kate by the arm, clutching at things, things, unable to keep it together.</p><p>"Bad dream," Kate said. Her mouth turned down.</p><p>He couldn't let go of her. Couldn't stop and put his pants on. Couldn't.</p><p>"She's trying to kill herself," he said hoarsely, and closed his eyes.</p><p>-----</p><p>In the hard silence, Castle glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Kate sat on the end of the bed like a truant high school girl, but when Carrie came through with Wyatt and James, she straightened up and opened her arms to them.</p><p>Castle stood to one side, quarantined from her by Eastman, and he reached for Wyatt, knowing the boy would take comfort from him whereas James would not. He had pants but no shirt, and Wyatt's fingers scratched against his bare skin as he clung.</p><p>But James saw Kate at that moment. James saw Kate sitting there and sobbed, "Mommy!", and leaned out for her, tears spilling down his face.</p><p>Kate shrank before his eyes. Shame washed over her face even as she embraced the boy, even as something of her iron walled fortress helped shore up James as well. The boy stopped sobbing immediately, huddled with his face against her neck.</p><p>Wyatt quieted the moment James did, and even though Castle had him, and cradled him to his chest, his little body didn't slump in defeat until James gave the all-clear about Kate.</p><p>Eastman looked murderous as he stood between them, hands on his hips, but his voice was like ice when he spoke. "Someone want to explain to me what the hell is going on?"</p><p>"Castle had a bad dream," Kate said first, though she had pressed her cheek to the top of James's head, wasn't looking at him.</p><p>"I had a bad-" Castle cut off his indignation with a growl and paced away from her, couldn't help but come right back, caught by the tether of her. "I had a fucking horrific nightmare is what I had. I had a living terror. I do not have dreams. I never dream-"</p><p>"Stress," Carrie said softly. She had sat down on the bed with Kate and stroked the back of James's neck. "It's been a really rough few days, and we haven't helped, I know. But-"</p><p>"Carrie," he said, warning in his voice he couldn't dampen. "I don't dream. You can ask Colin if you have to. I don't have dreams. Dreams don't come to me. They've done fucking studies. I don't have REM sleep."</p><p>Kate's mouth dropped open. "But you'll die."</p><p>"Not so far." He shrugged. "I have two stages to my sleep cycle. The first takes forty seconds. The next lasts three plus hours and puts my brain into - I don't remember - delta waves? But there is no REM sleep stage. It must do what needs to be done."</p><p>Everyone hitched, a strange sense of people figuring things out, trying to adjust. It wasn't strange to him - he never had thought much about it. But as they stared at him, he gestured roughly, accidentally jostling Wyatt. "What's important here is that Kate thinks killing herself is her best option. So of course I'm going to fucking yell at her for that, Mark, wouldn't you? You didn't have to pound down the door."</p><p>"I was pounding on the door because you woke both boys by yelling bloody murder."</p><p>He flinched and Carrie saw it, hushed Mark with a jerk of her head, but it was too late. He couldn't get the image out of his head, and that sick sense of her body in his arms, limp and just beginning to grow cold-</p><p>"Mommy," James gasped.</p><p>"Castle, stop it," she hissed.</p><p>"You put it there," he growled. He was furious; he was so fucking furious with her. "You started this, all damn day, weren't you? All day you were thinking about it, plotting it out. Guess what, Kate? You don't get to do that to me. To them. To them."</p><p>She glared at him, mouth curiously flat, like she might cry.</p><p>"Hang on," Eastman snapped. "Richard, shut your mouth for a second, would you? God, I never heard someone talk so much. Katie, look at me."</p><p>She turned like a petulant teenager, James mewling in her arms and squirming for her attention. James could feel it. He bet a million bucks that James had woken up terrified long before Castle had started yelling at her. Long before. It had been the yelling that maybe had set James off, but James had felt it.</p><p>Or seen it in his head.</p><p>"Damn," he muttered, swiping a hand down his face.</p><p>"Damn," Wyatt whispered back, tilting his head back to look at him.</p><p>Castle cupped his skull and kissed the tear-streaked face.</p><p>Kate was trying to ignore Eastman, but Castle was done with being held apart, being separated like two fighting kids. He shifted forward and glared at Mark when the man moved to stop him. Castle sank down on the corner of the bed and let Wyatt crawl over to Kate while James clutched her tighter.</p><p>"You're thinking it," Castle said finally, his chest tight. "Look at those kids. You can't pretend, can't say you weren't. All day I was thinking - how good this was, look how good we were together. But you - were already figuring out how to leave us."</p><p>She started to cry, and Carrie made a distressed kind of sound, but Kate didn't move. Wyatt crawled to hang onto her back, his face against her shoulder. "Mommy?"</p><p>"God," she choked, swiping at her eyes.</p><p>"Don't leave me, Kate."</p><p>She pressed a hand over her eyes but James reached up to clutch at her, as if even that was too much, while Wyatt smothered himself at her back.</p><p>Maybe it was too much. Maybe it was all too much.</p><p>Castle reached out and gently untangled James from her arms, pulled the boy to him even though he didn't want to come, and then he took Wyatt, wrestling against Wyatt's shriek of protest. Dramatics, despite the fact that Wyatt probably couldn't feel it like James could. Didn't matter, didn't matter because the melodrama had something real and dark at its core. </p><p>Now both boys were with him, it was just the three of them, and he let his misery open like a wound that wouldn't heal, let it weep, and James sobbed.</p><p>James sobbed and Kate broke, crashing forward into them, all three of them, but her arms came around his neck, came around himself, and she cried even as she kissed them, open-mouthed kisses to each of them, all of them, her grief as wide his own.</p><p>-----</p><p>James was - impossible.</p><p>She couldn’t separate him from Castle, but the moment she took her hand off of him, he sobbed for her. His tears were frightening, how uncontrollable, and more because it reminded her vividly of finding Castle on the floor in the dark, holding her body in his dream.</p><p>They sat close, both of them mashed into the wide armchair that was pulled up to the table before the window. Her hips ached fiercely but she kept her mouth shut; it was the least she could do to keep James from losing it. </p><p>Wyatt was worried. He looked it, furrows in his brow and clinging to their legs, pressing his face between Castle’s calf and her own, calling for their attention when he needed to be sure of them again. When she lifted her hand from James to drop it on Wyatt’s head, James mewled and struggled in Castle’s arms, and she had to lay her hand on the boy’s back once more, put her nose to his on Castle’s shoulder.</p><p>But he would not come back into her lap. He wouldn’t bury his face in her neck and curl his body to her chest.</p><p>For the first time since... ever. James wouldn’t touch her.</p><p>But he couldn’t bear to not have her touching him.</p><p>“Skin to skin,” Castle murmured at ear once more. Reminding her what naked touch did to their connection. It wasn’t comforting, to think she was scaring him too much, she was feeling or not feeling something that made it so that he couldn’t handle her.</p><p>At the same time, what a relief to know he instinctively had her figured out. He knew how not to let her overwhelm him.</p><p>Carrie came back with snacks from the vending machines and the ice bucket. They had adjourned to the Eastman’s room for the extra bed, hoping to get the boys back to sleep, but she also thought because Castle wanted more eyes on her.</p><p>Carrie passed out Sprite and Cheetos, and Wyatt’s interest piqued, his head lifting from her knee.</p><p>“Mommy?”</p><p>“You can have some,” she murmured, trying to rip open the bag one-handed. Carrie took it back from her and did it herself, gave it to Kate again so she could offer cheetos to Wyatt.</p><p>He held one, eyeing the cheese dust critically, then looked up to Castle. “Daddy?”</p><p>The man next to her, who had gone frighteningly quiet ever since she’d cried and lost it, gave a noise that sounded like it should have been a laugh - but he just didn’t have it in him.</p><p>And that hurt too.</p><p>“Go ahead, kid,” Castle said, shrugging. “I got no idea. Never eat that stuff.”</p><p>“Live a little,” Kate said, off the cuff, stupid, so thoughtless, and his face darkened. He didn’t look at her. </p><p>Her chest hurt. Everything hurt. She’d had such a - triumph - of a day; she had managed to actually live, and now everything was so messed up and broken.</p><p>She didn’t know what to do, how to fix it. There was no fix. Life was just this. Crying about it wouldn’t help.</p><p>But owning up to the truth of her reality - that might. It would, at least, put everything on the table, like Ben had done, making things easier on-</p><p>Well, easy wasn’t the right word. Prepared might be better. </p><p>Castle would know what was coming.</p><p>“I wouldn’t do it that way,” she said finally. “No blood. For you to find. That’s not fair to you.”</p><p>His horrified face turned mutely to hers, his mouth open. James whined.</p><p>Carrie and Eastman both moved, too suddenly, and she flinched, pressing back into the chair. Eastman stopped abruptly, but Carrie sank to the end of the bed nearest them and shook her head.</p><p>“Okay, okay, this is - serious. Katie, sweetie, this isn’t... our answer.”</p><p>She wasn’t stupid and this wasn’t a cry for help. She had already made her choice. “I won’t wait for it to take me. For it to eat through my brain so that I - hurt them. I won’t hurt them.”</p><p>“You don’t have fucking holes in your brain!” Castle roared.</p><p>Eastman sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. He knew, at least; he understood. Carrie had blanched but she shared a look with her husband that said she had thought of the possibility.</p><p>“No,” Castle hissed. “Stop doing that. All of you. Stop looking  at each other like I’m the one not listening to sense. She’s the one who thinks we’d be better off if she was dead.”</p><p>Eastman’s eyes snapped back to hers, like Castle had a good point. “Katie, look, we know it looks dire-”</p><p>“Don’t patronize me,” she snapped. “It’s an end of life decision that I get to make. I choose not to stab you, to murder my own children because I don’t know any better. I know better now. I will end it before-”</p><p>“No,” Carrie said.</p><p>Kate’s head whipped around to the woman.</p><p>Carrie pointed a finger at her. “One. You do not know this is your end of life, as you call it. It just feels that way, Kate. It feels bigger than you, but it’s not. And two. Two, sweetie, is that you don’t have to go that drastic for your answers.”</p><p>Castle stiffened beside her; she squirmed in her chair.</p><p>Carrie wasn’t finished. “We can check you into a facil-”</p><p>“No.” She scrambled up and was nearly out of the chair before Castle’s hand shot out and clamped down on her forearm, dragging her back to him. Her panic beat hard at the bars of her ribs, making her mouth taste like dust and feathers.</p><p>“Bad choice of words,” Carrie said slowly. “But there is voluntary check-in, and you get to check-out of your own free will as well. Besides that, there are soft restraints and hospital beds-”</p><p>“No,” Castle said this time. She felt the shudder run through him, the bare skin of his chest rising in goose bumps. “We tried that. We tried - no. Restraints are worse. Make it worse. She can’t-”</p><p>“For you I can,” she whispered.</p><p>His eyes jerked to hers. A strange look came over his face. “You’re doing this - you’re thinking this because of me.”</p><p>She pressed her lips together. She realized she had spilled cheetos from the bag at some point. Wyatt was picking them up off the floor and licking them. She felt hysterical again, swinging rapidly between emotions.</p><p>“You were going to kill yourself for my benefit.” His voice was pitched low, threatening. “To save me.”</p><p>“I already - almost killed you.” She lifted a hand to scrape it through her hair and James’s mouth twisted, his cry sharp and piercing so she had to lay it against him once more. “I can’t - can’t be the one to - if I can’t control myself, I need to be - I can’t even control myself. I can’t even remember doing it-”</p><p>“Nice,” he hissed. “Way to be selfish, Beckett. You can’t be the one, you can’t handle it. Do I even get a say? Do the boys? Because right now it’s all about you.”</p><p>Her lips went numb. </p><p>Carrie jumped in. “And it should be about you, it is about you. Richard. We’re not saying that your feelings shouldn’t be valued and given consideration-”</p><p>“No,” Castle snapped. “You’re wrong. I’m saying I’m not giving it consideration. I will not let you kill yourself. End of story.”</p><p>And so what. A lifetime of constant crippling fear that she was going to hurt her boys. All of them. Take away their daddy. Take away her only constant. The one person who had looked at her and said yes and with confidence. With complete trust, eyes open but blind faith at the same time.</p><p>Carrie leaned in and softly touched her knee. Kate flinched but tried to suppress it, saw she hadn’t succeeded.</p><p>But Carrie didn’t move her hand. “Kate, why don’t we wait to think about these options until after the MRI? Because, sweetie, it seems to me you’re showing a lot of care and consideration, a lot of compassion and even anguish over these guys, you family, and that’s not indicative of frontal lobe damage. You know? So, one thing at a time. Let’s hold off on this until after tomorrow.”</p><p>“Tomorrow,” Castle groaned. “Fuck, I don’t want to do-”</p><p>“I need to know,” she whispered.</p><p>Castle stopped. His head turned to hers, all of his grief, his frustration, his anger, all of it shifting in his eyes. She didn’t know what.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said finally. “We all need to know.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Wyatt’s cheese dusted face rubbed against her shirt, leaving orange smears as he fought sleep. James was still wide awake as well, and it seemed to transmit something to Wyatt, some kind of sense that things weren’t safe or settled yet.</p><p>“Come on, baby,” she whispered to the top of his head. “You need to sleep.”</p><p>“I don’t blame him,” Castle muttered. “I’d be afraid too. Never know when mommy might leave you.”</p><p>“Shut up, Castle,” she hissed. His constant comments, his snide remarks.</p><p>“Richard,” Mark said from the other bed. He and Carrie wouldn’t let them leave the room, but they had all retreated to the beds. “Save it for tomorrow.”</p><p>Kate tried not to feel such satisfaction about it, but while Castle glowered, she kissed the top of Wyatt’s head and rubbed his back. </p><p>She had broken him, somehow. Castle. She had done something irreversible. She only wanted to protect him for the boys’ sake. She had nothing else, she only had her love for them, and their love for her.</p><p>It was a powerful thing, she had to admit. James wouldn’t touch her but he kept his eyes on her all the time, and Castle held himself so stiffly, as if her hand or the press of her shoulder would set something off in him. Something he couldn’t control.</p><p>She had ruined it. It had been so good and she had ruined it. Would he touch her ever again?</p><p>God. She hadn’t realized how much she craved it. How she had come to need it, him. Need his regard, the way he looked at her like she was precious. No one had-</p><p>But now it was gone. She had done that by making a choice, a choice to protect them all, and it had consequences she hadn’t expected. Consequences for now, for the time she had left.</p><p>No riding off into the sunset for her. Just - this. </p><p>She cupped the back of Wyatt’s head and wondered if - how would Castle talk about her to them now? What would he say if she - when she did this to him?</p><p>She couldn’t forget the sight of him on the floor, sobbing for her. It was there every time she closed her eyes. And now he was so angry. He was so angry with her that she felt it everywhere, buzzing under her skin until she thought she was going to be sick.</p><p>The Eastmans were trying to be quiet as they talked between themselves - about her - trying to be quiet so they could get the boys back to sleep. But the boys weren’t sleeping. And their fight was on pause.</p><p>Her life was on pause.</p><p>This was the most miserable she’d felt in a long time. And she knew half of it was his. She just couldn’t stop it.</p><p>She bit the inside of her cheek and turned her body into him, laid her cheek on his shoulder even though he hated her right now. She let out a long breath when her skin touched his skin, and something of the heat of his body seeped into her.</p><p>Wyatt sank into Castle as well, cuddling with James. The two boys shivered, and she wondered if they had the same kind of connection. Wyatt’s eyes slipped shut.</p><p>“I won’t do this without you,” Castle said suddenly. </p><p>She stiffened.</p><p>His hand lifted from James’s back and touched the top of her head, smoothing down her hair. “I won’t be able to do it, Kate. You think more of me than I actually am.”</p><p>“You’re-”</p><p>“Just listen,” he said quickly. “Just - don’t say anything. I’m trying to explain what the future holds for us if you - if you leave us.”</p><p>She took a shaky breath but she didn’t say anything.</p><p>“Two boys - and me. Two against one. Two boys who want their mother and all they get is me.”</p><p>“Their father,” she whispered.</p><p>“Whose own father did this,” he scraped out. “That’s the example I’ve got, the only parent I had. My instincts are corrupt, my first reactions - they’re all wrong. I’m a soldier, an assassin. I deal with problems in expedient and conscience-less ways. I’m no father.”</p><p>His being here in this bed with her said differently. Cradling James and soothing him. </p><p>“Look, Kate, this is what I’d do - find a couple of good people I could count on. Maybe even Carrie and Mark, though they seem determined not to have kids of their own-”</p><p>“No,” she said, lifting her head. “Castle-”</p><p>“Someplace I could keep on eye on them, if they needed something, but well out of my orbit. So I won’t bring my - life - home to them. And then I’d go and I would round up every single fucking last one of them who did this, who were part of this, and I would make it as fucking agonizing as tonight has been.”</p><p>She turned her head into his shoulder, closed her eyes.</p><p>“Mommy.” Pitiful and sad, and she opened her eyes to see James crawling over his brother to get to her.</p><p>She felt tears slide down her face but she reached for him, dragging him into her arms, pressing kisses to cheeks and chin and his mouth. “Hey, baby, hey, love you. I love you.”</p><p>James gave a sad little sound and clutched her hair in his fingers, his face at her neck. </p><p>“Pretty miserable without you,” Castle whispered, turning his face to hers and pressing his lips to her forehead. “All of us. Need you too much, baby. You hold us together.”</p><p>She sucked in a ragged breath, an arm braced around James, Wyatt now pressed between them. </p><p>“Can’t you see that, Kate?” He cupped the side of her face and stroked the hair back behind her ear. “Whatever happens tomorrow, whatever it the MRI tells us, doesn’t change how much we need you.”</p><p>“But you can’t let me - don’t let me hurt them,” she pleaded.</p><p>“Don’t you trust me,” he whispered. “Don’t you think I keep my promises? Haven’t I kept us safe? Haven’t I given you everything you needed, everything you asked of me-”</p><p>“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she mumbled. She tried not to sound like her heart was breaking.</p><p>“All I ask, all I’m asking, sweetheart, is that you don’t choose this. You fought so damn hard, baby, you got out of there and you brought the boys out. Don’t stop fighting now. Why would you stop now?”</p><p>God. She just wanted-</p><p>“Mommy,” James mewled at her neck, burrowing closer.</p><p>She stroked the back of his neck, the soft curl of his dark hair under her fingers.</p><p>She wanted James. She wanted Wyatt. She wanted her boys.</p><p>And she wanted Castle. Castle who wouldn’t let go of her.</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate had fallen asleep curled in the bed with the boys huddled like puppies in the cove of her body. Castle was awake, couldn’t and wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, and even though Carrie had dropped off, Eastman woke every few hours as if jerking out of dreams.</p><p>Castle had just given Mark the all-clear field signal when his phone buzzed in his pants pocket. He hadn’t even realized he had the damn thing on him, and he startled in the bed, tried not to move too much as he reached for it.</p><p>Kate drew in a harsh breath, stiffening, but he froze, phone halfway out of his pocket, until she had settled again, her head pillowed in his lap. He touched the crown of her hair and slowly slid the phone out, saw it was his brother calling.</p><p>He answered quietly. “Col?”</p><p>“Yeah, just calling to check in, big brother. You sound funny.”</p><p>“Surprised you haven’t called before now,” he croaked. His voice was raw. He cupped his palm over her ear, hoping to muffle the sound. “Didn’t feel that?”</p><p>“Felt something,” Colin admitted. “Disturbance in the force. But you’ve been pretty disturbed the last few weeks, man.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he choked out. Her hair was so soft under his fingers, curved behind her ear. He couldn’t help stroking it. “Kate - uh - I had a dream.”</p><p>“What the fuck. You don’t dream.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“No, fuck, I’m serious, Castle. Are you serious?”</p><p>“Nightmare.”</p><p>“Well, of fucking course it was a nightmare, Richard. A night terror. Remember when I got those as a kid?”</p><p>“Oh.” He did actually. Fuck, that had been brutal. Black had been ready to- “Oh, damn. Because your dreams didn’t come in REM sleep.”</p><p>“Yeah, exactly, man. Body and brain don’t know how to handle those images because they’re not in the dream state. Make ‘em feel real. What’d you dream?”</p><p>“Kate killed herself.”</p><p>“Kate what?”</p><p>“In my dream, she - she slit her wrists.”</p><p>“Fuck. Fuck.”</p><p>“I-” Castle swallowed roughly and bowed his head, the images so fresh and poignant that he had to shut it down, hard.</p><p>“Fuck,” Colin groaned. “I feel that. I fucking feel that, fuck, Castle. You gotta fucking tone that down or that kid is going to feel it too. That kid is going to live it, Castle, get your fucking shit together-”</p><p>“Try-trying,” he gritted his teeth. Hand at her ear, the soft shell of her ear, the fuzz of short hair right before her ear. </p><p>“Alright, okay, fuck, that’s - better. Damn it. Castle, why the fuck can’t you get yourself under control?”</p><p>“Because it fucking rips my heart out of my chest.”</p><p>“Okay, okay,” Colin said in a rush. “Just - breathe, you know. Breathe in and then breathe out, yeah?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Damn. You are intense. Just - you know - shit, she’s not dead, Castle. She’s alive. She’s not going to kill herself, she’s-”</p><p>“She is. She - was going to. She said - I dreamed what she was feeling all damn day, Colin.”</p><p>His brother was struck silent.</p><p>Castle tilted his head back against the headboard. “She wants it so badly that it left a damn stain in my head. A fucking imprint so deep that it made me dream. Dream what she’s been planning-”</p><p>“Planning? Why is she fucking planning to commit suicide?”</p><p>“The - the holes. What Ben said. She thinks she might - she thinks that’s already her, why she has those fugue states, why she - used the scalpel on me. She thinks she’s going to hurt us. She thinks if she removes herself from - from the equation-”</p><p>“I - uh - fuck. Rick. I think I did this. It might be - uh - might be partly my fault.”</p><p>Castle froze.</p><p>“Ah, shit,” Colin muttered.</p><p>“What. What are you saying.” His heart thundered. James was stirring against Kate. He had to stop, had to control himself, had to-</p><p>“I told her that - that when she was dangerous to you, when she felt it, she had to find a way to leave. Leave before she could stab you again.”</p><p>“What.” Oh, God. “Colin.”</p><p>“Not like that. I only meant to take a fucking weekend trip. Do what I do and disappear for a few days until the crazy was gone.”</p><p>“God damn you-”</p><p>“I don’t want her to die, Castle. I do not want her to die. I’m not stupid. I see what she is for you, what she does for all of us.”</p><p>He could hear his own breath whistling in his lungs, and he had to get it together. Couldn’t wake Kate, couldn’t wake James. Or fucking Eastman either.</p><p>Had to be better than this, had to figure out how to control himself so that he didn’t push his own terror and misery off onto them. He had been making them all miserable, hadn’t he? </p><p>“Okay, look,” Colin hissed on the phone. “Listen to me. We’ll fix this. She doesn’t have fucking holes in her brain. You and I both knew Dick Coonan and how fucking batshit insane he was. Kate’s nowhere close to that. She’s not even on that damn road.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Yeah. We won’t - let her do this. We’ll take fucking shifts if we have to. And the fucking MRI tomorrow, that will show her she’s okay. I mean - she might always wonder if it will happen, and that fucking sucks, but the sooner we get her off the damn elixir, the better. We’ll fucking figure this out. We have Ben and Alex now, Castle, you know? Ben and Alex are fucking smart.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Damn, you need to - where’s Kate now? And the boys?”</p><p>“Right. Here. Right here with me. All of us in the bed.”</p><p>“Okay, okay, that’s good. Right? That’s good. You just keep her in sight. We’ll fix this.”</p><p>“Yeah.” He could see the pink curve of her cheek and the way her lids fluttered. He lowered his voice and dipped his chin, combed his fingers through her hair to settle her. “Yeah, we’ll fix it.”</p><p>“We will. Now I gotta go. Maintaining my surveillance of the lab. Tomorrow.”</p><p>“Tomorrow,” he rasped.</p><p>He ended the call and pushed his phone into his pocket, carefully, and then he couldn’t help easing his body down in the bed. He cradled her head in one hand until he was lying face to face with her, the boys between them. He cupped her face between his hands and stroked his thumbs at her cheekbones, absorbing her, all of her.</p><p>Tomorrow, they’d fix this.</p><p>-----</p><p>She woke immediately, gasping awake, but held fast by Castle.</p><p>His hands at her face, his kiss dusting her forehead, the hum of words against her skin she didn’t understand for a moment.</p><p>And then they came clear.</p><p>“It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re okay.”</p><p>She trembled and realized she had both arms around the boys, but she unwound from them  and clutched at Castle’s forearm, swallowing hard. His eyes were so blue. Churned up, shiny. She’d made him like that; she’d done that to him.</p><p>“You’re okay,” he said again, insistent.</p><p>But she wasn’t okay. “I hurt you.”</p><p>“No, stop,” he whispered. His lips against her lips, breathing into her. “Stop, honey. Don’t keep thinking like that. We gotta change the way you see yourself, sweetheart.”</p><p>She sucked in a hard breath and clung tighter to him. Had it been a dream? Was it just a dream or was it not knowing what happened next? Was it just her life that had her ready to cry? She’d made him so furious with her.</p><p>“You’re okay. Right this moment, Kate, think. Step back and think about it.”</p><p>“What,” she croaked.</p><p>“You had a dream, you had a rough night, I wasn’t very nice-”</p><p>“No, you’re perfect,” she sobbed. </p><p>“No, honey, hush, oh God, don’t cry, baby. Come on, Kate, sweetheart.” His lips caught the tears that spilled over, his voice quieting her. “That’s better, better. You don’t need to cry. I love you, I love you.”</p><p>“You do?”</p><p>“Of course,” he rasped. “Of course. I’m - so furious with you because I love you so much. If I didn’t, I’d hardly - hey, baby, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m sorry I made you think any different.” </p><p>His mouth against hers, at each cheek, and her chest untorqued one small degree, letting her breathe again.</p><p>“Hey, Kate, love, if you need to cry, okay, okay. Just let it go with the tears.”</p><p>“You’re angry at me-”</p><p>“I’m angry at fucking life. Sorry. Don’t flinch. I just - this isn’t fair to you at all, this whole damn thing, three years, and to have it follow you after you just got free. We just got free of it. Damn.”<br/>She swallowed roughly and clung to his arm, taking another breath.</p><p>He stroked her cheek with a thumb. “Talk to me, Kate,” he murmured. “Can you at all? I promise I’ll listen. I won’t yell. You need to talk about this so we can figure this out, so we can make good decisions together. All right?”</p><p>“Good decisions,” she echoed faintly. She didn’t quite see where he was going-</p><p>“Can you tell me - tell me why this looks like your only option?” he whispered. Something so heartbreakingly hopeful in his voice. “I know you don’t like to talk. I get that. It makes it real in a way you had to deny for three years. But we gotta start seeing the truth of things, sweetheart. The reality. Or else we’re going to keep hurting each other.”</p><p>“I don’t want to hurt you,” she mewled.</p><p>“I know, I know. That’s why we need to talk. I won’t yell. I’ll listen. I’m listening.”</p><p>“You’re not listening,” she choked out.</p><p>“I am. I’m listening, honey. I swear-”</p><p>“I don’t want to hurt you. I can’t hurt you, I can’t - I can’t-”</p><p>“Oh. Oh, you mean-”</p><p>She nodded wordlessly, tears spilling out of her eyes and skiing sideways down her nose to melt in the bedsheet. </p><p>“Okay, okay,” he whispered. His lips came to her forehead and she closed her eyes, shuddering on a breath.</p><p>She felt emptied out.</p><p>“I - I understand what you’re saying.”</p><p>Kate sighed, curled her knees up until they touched Wyatt’s side. He had tucked his fingers into the waistband of her panties, sticking close, while James had a fistful of her t-shirt. And now Castle still cradled her head in his hands, both hands, so broad and wide and capable.</p><p>“Okay, well, let’s think this through, Kate, okay? You don’t want to be - out of your control? - and hurt me. It’s - happened once, and you think it will happen again.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“And the boys?”</p><p>“You’ll keep them safe,” she whispered.</p><p>“I will,” he said gravely. “I will keep them safe.”</p><p>She shuddered and opened her eyes. He was studying her intently. She blinked but he didn’t kiss her this time; he just held her face between his hands.</p><p>“You trust that. You know that in your heart. I will not let you hurt them.”</p><p>“Yes,” she sighed.</p><p>“Because I love them.”</p><p>“Yeah,” she choked. He loved them, God, he loved them so much. It was - beyond anything she’d dreamed possible.</p><p>“Do you think I don’t love you?”</p><p>She shivered and jerked her eyes to meet his. “What?”</p><p>“I love you. And because I love you, I will not let you hurt them. I will not let you hurt yourself. And because you’re so terribly broken over this, because you’re sobbing in our bed, Kate, because I love you, I won’t let you hurt me either. I matter to you. So I matter to me.”</p><p>She blinked, staring dumbly at him.</p><p>“Do you believe that I love you?”</p><p>Did she believe? What did belief have to do with it?</p><p>“Or did he tell you that no one loves a broken thing?”</p><p>She felt the sob clawing at her throat, demanding out, but she was frozen. Petrified.</p><p>“He told me that too,” Castle whispered fiercely. “And he’s wrong. He broke you and then he said no one could possibly want a broken thing. He broke you, and he made you think broken things were impossible to care about.”</p><p>“No,” she choked out, struggling. Immobile, trembling in the bed, but her whole being fought. Fought. More than John fucking Black. More.</p><p>“You know that’s not right. You know he fucked with your head, but you beat him. You played his game and you won. You got out of there alive with our sons. You’re not broken.”</p><p>She swallowed, swallowed hard, but it was still in her throat. “He - told you?”</p><p>“From the time I was five. Shut me down hard, Kate, and I never saw it for what it was. Not until you, until I felt you, connected with you. He made us all believe it, too broken to work in the normal world. But I’m telling you, me, I’m telling you that’s not how it works. He only said that to make us stay broken, to keep us under his thumb. Are you going to let him keep you broken?”</p><p>“No,” she groaned. She heard the Eastmans stirring in the next bed and she jerked forward, burying her head in Castle’s neck and shoulder, gulping back the tears that drained out of her.</p><p>“No,” he said fiercely. “No. You won’t let him. I already know you won’t. So believe me, believe me when I say that I love you completely. I will not let you hurt me, hurt any of us, because I know what it does to you, how it would tear your heart out. Because you’re tearing mine out, Kate. You’re killing me with this.”</p><p>She just cried.<br/>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0027"><h2>27. Chapter 27</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was hard with the boys between them and tangled in her, but when Kate crawled over them and into his arms, he wasn't about to caution her about little hands. She wanted to be hidden, to be buried - he felt that - and so he laid practically on top of her, let her press her face into the curve of his neck and breathe.</p><p>He had an arm braced at her back, and now they were scooted way over to one side, nearly to the wall of the hotel room. He lifted his head to check on the boys and they moved like little wolf pups towards Kate's back, Wyatt in the crook of her knees. He shifted to drop a hand to James, stroking the curl of hair at the boy's nape, and then he skimmed his fingers down the back of her thigh until he found Wyatt.</p><p>"They okay?" she husked.</p><p>"Mm, just fine," he whispered. "You want to sleep?"</p><p>She shook her head, so he didn't contradict her, didn't pressure her with the morning that would come in mere hours, the day they had lined up. Maybe she'd fall asleep inside the MRI machine if he could talk her into it.</p><p>Yeah, right.</p><p>"Want to talk?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>He chuckled dryly and petted down her hair, pushing it away from his mouth. "Can I talk?"</p><p>She nodded against him, this time with a little more hesitance, a little less confidence, and he took a slow breath to reclaim some of his hard-won calm. </p><p>"How about I tell you a bedtime story," he murmured.</p><p>She gave a strangled kind of laugh, and he took it for assent, kissed the side of her face where her tears were drying.</p><p>He was terrible at stories, let alone bedtime stories that were supposed to be calm and peaceful. All of his stories were about killing. But maybe she needed to see him for what he truly was, what he had been until her. Maybe she needed to know how big a difference this was in him, what she did for him. "Mark had it right when he said I was dangerous," he whispered. "Six weeks ago, Colin asked me to help him raid a warehouse where our father had been stockpiling ammunition. Or so we thought. Ammunition. I said, what could extra ammo hurt? And I blew him off to do an off-books assignment that Black had given me."</p><p>Kate drew in a hard breath against his neck, and he cupped the back of her head.</p><p>"I traveled by way of an Army deployment truck to the border at Texas, slipped into Mexico on foot. I hoofed it to an airstrip that some acquaintances had carved out of the land, an unsanctioned dirt runway, basically, that I'd stumbled onto a few years back, didn't report them just so I could do shit like this."</p><p>"Mexico," she murmured.</p><p>"Uh-huh. I flew out of Mexico in a plane I 'borrowed' and landed in Cuba where I knew the plane would be taken back, filled with human cargo, people desperate to escape sanctions. Didn't much care, just helping the process."</p><p>"The process," she whispered. Her fingers touched his neck, stroking, and he shivered.</p><p>"Yeah, wheels being greased. From Cuba I went to Colombia where the FARC has an unholy alliance with the drug cartel that runs the damn place. But guess what? CIA has an unholy alliance as well. I was there as a contract killer for the cartel. Did their bidding to keep them in our pockets. I slit the throat of a woman who was playing both sides, actually felt glad to do it. I was lying in wait for her in a hotel room, naked of course, that's how she liked them. I thought I'd just - grind one out, just for the pleasure of not paying her. Make it look jealous lover. But she came in and was - pleased and - fucking bitch. Cold as fuck, just - I don't know why it got to me. When had it ever gotten to me? But it did. She was grinding in my lap and she was laughing at me, and I pulled the knife - an Army knife, with the serrated blade, complete overkill - and I slit her throat from ear to ear. And not deeply. No. Shallow enough for her to lie there in her own blood for awhile. Because she deserved it. Playing me, playing the CIA. Playing the cartel and FARC and not giving a single thought to how it affected people."</p><p>Kate shivered, and he came back to himself, ashamed.</p><p>"First time I ever thought anything at all about a job," he whispered. "First time I ever had a moment's emotion whatsoever. And it was rage. Such fucking furious rage."</p><p>"At her."</p><p>"No," he sighed. "No, not her. At me. At Black for building me this way. At my mother for not once caring what happened. At the whole damn world for rejecting me for what I am."</p><p>"Was."</p><p>"What?" he said, how his voice sounded like gravel.</p><p>"What you were."</p><p>"Still am," he sighed. "Three weeks makes-"</p><p>Her head pulled back from his neck, her body wriggling to see him. "If I'm not broken, neither are you."</p><p>He opened his mouth but he didn't have much good to say to that, not if he didn't want to ruin what little they'd built in the last thirty minutes. </p><p>"Neither are you," she insisted.</p><p>"Okay," he swallowed. "Okay."</p><p>"Say it."</p><p>"Neither am I."</p><p>"You had a lot of anger, you still do. I felt it. But look at you now. You're being good to me. You didn't slit my throat, did you? And maybe I deserved-"</p><p>"No," he snapped.</p><p>She hunched her shoulders and came back into his neck. After a tense silence, her smallno was mumbled against his throat.</p><p>"No," he whispered, brushing a kiss to the corner of her eye. "I was a killer, but I'm not now. I was a cold machine, not even enough to be a bastard, you know? That would've required some kind of energy. I was dead inside. And now there's you. If you take that away from me, I don't know what happens. I don't know, but it's not good. And it's got a lot of rage and a lot of death attached."</p><p>She curled her fingers at his neck and said nothing, but the fact that she touched him still, that counted for something.</p><p>After a long moment, her lips curved at his skin. "You suck at bedtime stories."</p><p>And it made him laugh.</p><p>-----</p><p>He was whispering to her in the darkness, and she heard it, he was making her laugh or making her sad for him, but he was whispering his stories into her hair as she drifted in and out of sleep. She dreamed him and she dozed through the humming laughter, and she roused to cup the side of his face when he went soft and quiet and sorrowed.</p><p>He was warm under and above her, he was warm surrounding her, and eventually she slept.</p><p>She woke to bleary morning light and Castle talking in low tones to Carrie. She stirred when Carrie tried to pick up Wyatt, but the woman didn't take him from her.</p><p>"You're awake?"</p><p>"Mm," Kate shivered and rolled to her back, a flare of ache in her hips that felt good. Like someone had pressed down into her pelvis and popped her bones apart and now they were resettling. "Awake."</p><p>"I'll leave them to you, then," Carrie whispered. </p><p>Kate closed her eyes and took a long breath in through lungs that felt warped and stretched, as if taken out and put back in again. She felt Castle's lips against hers in good morning, smiled into his kiss and touched her tongue to his mouth. He grunted and she opened her eyes, and he grinned down at her and kissed her again, harder, like she liked it best.</p><p>"Babies," he said.</p><p>"Spoilsport."</p><p>"Eastmans," he murmured, eyebrow raising. </p><p>"Ew."</p><p>He chuckled and leaned back into her, over her, reaching past her to stroke a hand down James's back. "Nurse and then breakfast?"</p><p>"Ung, shower," she said.</p><p>"Shower, good, Good." He kissed her again, shifted off the bed. "Carrie will watch them if you want?"</p><p>"Want you?" she murmured. "Definitely. You want me?"</p><p>He laughed and caught her by the front of her t-shirt, tugged so it draped all wrong, exposing, and she laughed back and slapped him away. </p><p>She moved to sit up and groaned, eyelids fluttering with the feeling of being rearranged. </p><p>"Kate?"</p><p>"Damn, that's good," she muttered. Cracked open an eye. Castle was hovering at her side, a fist in the mattress as he leaned back in again. "No, I'm good. Help me up?"</p><p>"Not sure I should have to help you up," he said, but he did anyway. Instead of taking her by the hands and dragging her upright like she'd intended, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the open space of floor.</p><p>She was a little breathless. Only a little. "Trying to sweep me off my feet?" she murmured, on her toes as he put her down.</p><p>"Did it work?"</p><p>She quirked her lips at him and stood on her own, feeling it now, the sense of having been churned up inside - both the intensity of sex and the emotional shit storm she'd been through. But that wasn't too bad. She could deal. Especially if he followed her into the shower.</p><p>Oh. She hadn't nursed, and a hot shower, and he maybe shouldn't-</p><p>"Come on, love," he hummed at her back, crowding her forward. "Soap me up before Mark gets back from his run."</p><p>She let out a little breath, glancing at him over her shoulder, his sly smile and the knowing cast to his eyes. She wondered if she looked that pleased too, that - that sexed up. Sexy. Sexual.</p><p>All those things.</p><p>She ducked her head and looked past him to Carrie who had left the bathroom ahead of them and now was towel drying her hair. "You don't mind if-"</p><p>Carrie straightened up, damp towel in her hands. "I'm a vet, so I'm not the prude that Mark is. But I'm warning you guys. Especially after all that last night. You hear me, Richard Castle? Chafing. Invest in lube."</p><p>Castle's jaw dropped, but Kate giggled, burying her laughter into his chest with her eyes peering over his shoulder. "We'll work it out," she promised. She was a hundred percent certain she didn't need lube, not with the way he made her feel, but it was good information to have for just in case. Maybe it broke. Or maybe there was only so much a human body could produce in a certain time frame before suffering dehydration or something. "Oh, wait, baby, get me one of the bottles of pedialyte from the fridge in here."</p><p>Castle grumbled something and this time Carrie went a little pink, but she rolled her eyes at them and opened the fridge door herself. She handed it over to Castle, Castle passed it back to her, and Kate popped open the top and took a big swig.</p><p>"Come on, Beckett," he growled, pushing on her again. She took another fast swallow and hustled forward into the bathroom.</p><p>But she was arrested by the steamed up mirror, the heat that still lingered in the tile after Carrie's shower. She caught a glimpse of Castle as he stripped off his pants and her breath stuttered in her chest.</p><p>She wanted him more now than before. How was that possible? More than ever because he wanted her back.</p><p>-----</p><p>“Can I?” he said softly, waiting for her to agree. She lifted her eyes and nodded, not even a hesitation, and he cupped her face, kissing her very softly just because she made him feel like that.</p><p>Like soft kisses sometimes. Like stroking the hair back from her face and touching her skin all over, everywhere. </p><p>“What are you doing?” she whispered.</p><p>“Touching you.”</p><p>She tilted her head and opened an eye, studying him like that, lips pressed together, and it struck him. “You - look a little bit like James right there. Did you know that?”</p><p>She grinned, but she looked shy about it, and God, that killed him. What had he done to her last night? How was she here with him still?</p><p>“I might be saying this too much, but you’re beautiful,” he sighed, wrapping her in his arms. He had meant to strip that damn t-shirt off over her head and slip his hands into her panties, but there was something about her body pressed to his that was better.</p><p>Right now anyway.</p><p>She curved to his body, her arms moving slowly around his waist. He felt her fingers trace lightly at the place where the scar had already faded, and then her soft sigh.</p><p>Enough. Enough regret and grief and guilt. </p><p>He inched up her shirt, felt her smile beginning to curl as his fingers touched the bare skin of her back. He skimmed up and down her spine, shirt up around her shoulders, leaning in over her to kiss her neck.</p><p>She hummed and swayed with him, as if dancing, and he palmed her sides to bring her shirt over her head. When she tossed her hair out and he dropped the shirt, she smiled up at him, her breasts, her shoulders, the long line of her neck. How he wanted. He slid his hands down to her ass and gripped her tightly, pulled her hips into his.</p><p>She shivered and pressed her breasts against his bare skin.</p><p>“Hey there,” he murmured.</p><p>“Should at least start the shower, pretend like it.” </p><p>He chuckled and hoisted her up against him; she knew exactly what he was going for and she wrapped her legs around his waist, hanging on to him by the neck. He carried her over to the little tub and flipped on the water, adjusting it warmer than he usually did, remembering what she needed.</p><p>She was kissing his neck. She was touching her tongue to his skin and biting under his jaw and distracting the hell out of him.</p><p>“Fuck, you blow me up.”</p><p>She laughed and her head came up, and just for that smirk on her face, he carried her over the rim of the tub and into the spray. She gasped and arched, laughing harder, her body tensing and tightening around him in the best way.</p><p>But he remembered what Carrie had said, remembered the look on Kate’s face when she had rolled onto her back - like her whole body had been stiff. He remembered, and he had to love her gently.</p><p>While he worried, she had tilted her head into the spray, her eyes closing as her hair darkened with water, soaked. He lifted a hand from her back and cupped her skull, supporting her, and he felt her weight shift into it.</p><p>Her breasts were beautiful, not as heavy this morning as they’d been before. Beautiful breasts, beautiful skin, the water dripping down the column of her neck and between those gorgeous breasts.</p><p>She lifted up once more, blinking wet eyelashes at him. “What happened to soaping you up?”</p><p>“Mm, yes, I did say that, didn’t I?”</p><p>She wriggled and tried to drop her legs, so he let her go, set her on her feet. She balanced for a moment - long enough that he could tell her hips must ache - and then she turned for the hotel soap, wrinkled her nose and took the bottle that Carrie or Eastman or someone had left on the ledge.</p><p>“We should’ve gone to our own room for this,” she muttered. “You’re gonna smell funny.”</p><p>“Funny?” he laughed. </p><p>“Not like you should.”</p><p>He smiled but he understood, and as she opened the bottle and they caught a whiff of the bland, dollar store soap, he figured at least it wasn’t something entirely distinctive.</p><p>“At least it doesn’t smell like Eastman,” he said.</p><p>She wrinkled her nose at him even as she poured a huge glob of soap into her hand and flipped the lid closed again. She set it aside and then cupped her hands together, glanced up at him. Her back was to the spray, blocking most of it, and she came towards him and palmed his ribs.</p><p>He sucked in a breath, electricity tingling between them, and she ran her hands up and over his pecs to his shoulders and then back down to his hips-</p><p>And down.</p><p>He croaked her name as she stroked over his cock, and of course he thickened for her, already rising, pulsing with heat and need. She nudged him back a little and soaped her hands back up his chest so that her belly touched his his cock.</p><p>“Ah, God,” he groaned.</p><p>“Sit on the edge of the tub,” she murmured, kissing his jaw as her hands rubbed slick and soapy up and down his back.</p><p>He tumbled back, sank down hard on the edge of the tub, accidentally pulling at the shower curtain. Kate maneuvered him away from the hem of the white liner, and he shifted, his eyes heavy with the sight of her - taking care of him. More ways than one.</p><p>She went to her knees before him, soaping his inside thighs, his calves, back up his shins to hang on his knees. She laid her cheek against his leg and looked up at him, as if she couldn’t believe he was here either.</p><p>She turned then and her angled body allowed the water to him, little touches along his chest, harder stream against his thighs, and the powerful force of the water between his legs.</p><p>He groaned and tilted back against the tile, breathing hard, and Kate cupped water in her hands and washed the soap off his body.</p><p>And then before he knew what was happening, she had draped her arms over his legs and leaned in to kiss his cock.</p><p>-----</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>Kate Beckett.</p><p>Kate. </p><p>Beckett.</p><p>Her mouth was warm and wet, and she swallowed against him, making his whole body shudder. She sucked at his head, her tongue running along the slit and back down his shaft. He was shaking, rumbling in his chest, water tickling his inside thighs as her fingers burned at his cock, her mouth-</p><p>“Oh, fuck, Kate, baby-” He grunted and jerked forward, inward, curled over her, barely hanging on to his control.</p><p>He cupped her shoulders, dragged his fingers to the back of her head to comb through her hair. Back from her face, those gorgeous knowing eyes lifting to meet his, that shock of fucking hot intimacy zapping through him</p><p>“Ah, baby, fuck, oh fuck, you’re so amazing,” he husked. Not even sure she could hear him. He could only feel her mouth around him, her hand pulling at the base of his cock, the terrible urgency to have her, have her, never let her leave him.</p><p>She didn’t have any kind of art to it, she just - fuck - it was like she was kissing him. Her lips delicate, her tongue caressing. And then she swallowed him, so firm with her work, sucked his throbbing cock deep in her mouth, almost to her throat, and then slid off him again, licking.</p><p>“F-fuck,” he growled, his head bowed forward over her, cupping her jaw and trying not to direct her movements.</p><p>His eyes fluttered open and saw her, took her in, absorbed the beauty of her kneeling before him.</p><p>She was actually on her haunches, her feet flat on the outside of his, her knees pressing into his shins.</p><p>Her hips rocked as she mouthed him, licking a line of fire around his balls, and he stuttered, his leg jerking in reflex. </p><p>Kate groaned against him and his hips bucked, but he felt her now, felt her wet sex against his shin where his leg had twitched into her. She rocked hard against him, and Castle caught her shoulder to give her leverage, his own hips thrusting shallowly in response. She groaned and swallowed him down again, her throat contracting, the vibration of her whine going straight to his balls.</p><p>“Fuck, fuck,” he moaned, curling in hard over her body, tensing his leg as she ground her sex against him. </p><p>Her mouth, the heat of her, fuck, her mouth-<br/>“Gonna - come. Fuck. Kate. You better fucking come, I can’t-”</p><p>She whimpered and went rigid, her fingers clawing into his thigh, and he felt her body shudder it out, her climax shaking her hard. Her teeth scraped his cock and he lost it, he was losing it, losing it, fuck she was swallowing him down and taking it, warm and hot and fuck-</p><p>He collapsed inward, elbows on his knees, gripping her hair and trying not to hurt her anymore.</p><p>She slipped off his cock and kissed him very softly, lifting her head then to kiss his mouth.</p><p>He moaned when she shared the essence of his flavor, tongue to tongue, and he pulled her up across his thighs, cradling her to him.</p><p>-----</p><p>She couldn't deny there was an awkward moment where they came out of the bathroom and Eastman was standing just at the door to leave, arms crossed, deep scowl, obviously having already taken a shower - in their room, evidently.</p><p>He didn't comment, but he and Carrie made themselves scarce, saying they were going down to breakfast to leave them the room. Kate stood there in only a towel with her hair wet and her body steaming from the shower, how hot it had been in more ways than one, and she watched them leave, Castle right at her back and still just inside the bathroom.</p><p>When they had gone, Castle let out a little low chuckle and laid his hand on her shoulder, squeezed. "Well, that didn't go too badly. I'll sneak next door and grab our clothes and stuff. Be right back, baby." His kiss to the corner of her mouth was sloppy, but happier than she'd expected to have any right to after last night.</p><p>With her arm still wrapped around his waist, she pressed her cheek against his as long as she could, and then he was squeezing the back of her neck and slipping out the door with both keycards.</p><p>Kate turned and found both boys still heavily asleep, curled around each other like puppies, and she went ahead and crawled into the bed with them. The towel fell around her waist and she used a corner to dry a line of water behind her knee, leaned back against the headboard to wait. On Castle or the boys to wake, didn't really matter.</p><p>She lifted her foot and touched the back of James's head, used her toe to tickle his ear. He stirred and she heard his mouth smack in his sleep, and then he rolled over into her leg, eyes sluggishly opening.</p><p>"Hey, baby boy. Can you wake up for me?"</p><p>James tried valiantly, even rubbed his face into her shin and tried to lift on his hands, but exhaustion had him. She leaned down and carefully grabbed him under his arms, dragged him up against her body to cradle him at her chest. </p><p>"Morning, sweetheart. Not very good morning, though, is it?" She wrinkled her nose at him and his eyelids fluttered, trying to watch her. "We had a rough night and the day isn't much better. But I'm here. I'm here."</p><p>"Mama," he mumbled, rooting into her breast on a sigh. She helped him find it, and then she laid her head back against the headboard and closed her eyes, feeling him nurse, his sleepy drag at her nipple and the warmth of his body.</p><p>The door came open but she didn't open her eyes, much as her instincts flared and her body tense for a moment. She heard Castle make a soft noise in his throat at seeing her with James, and then she felt him move through the room to come to her side. His kiss on her forehead was soft, and it made her eyes slide open then, just in time to see him lower a kiss to the top of James's head as well.</p><p>"Brought our stuff, sweetheart." He dropped the bag to the floor and sank down to the side of the mattress. </p><p>"Thanks. Crawl in?" She shifted just enough to give him room in invitation, and he took it, drawing his legs up and sitting beside her against the headboard. She leaned her shoulder against his and then adjusted the baby so she could lay her cheek to Castle's arm.</p><p>He brought his hand up and stroked through her wet hair, catching tangles as he did. "I was thinking we should get some special shampoo," he murmured idly. "I saw it in the little market downstairs after breakfast yesterday."</p><p>"What?" She rearranged James's leg which was caught at her ribs, eased him into a better position.</p><p>"They have all those products in case you forgot something. Anyway, a whole range of hair care stuff and it made me realize I just have no idea."</p><p>"Why should you know about hair care?" she snorted.</p><p>"Well," he paused, shrugged so that her head jostled a little. "Right. But I read up, crash course. And there's a sulfate free shampoo that's supposed to be good for damaged hair."</p><p>"You saying my hair's damaged?"</p><p>He grunted and she turned her smirk into his shoulder, nipped at his skin to show she didn't care. "It's tangled all the time. Not just because you run your fingers through it. Damaged might be right."</p><p>"Well, I think the pH balance is off. When I was reading it said your hair is supposed to be a little acidic, between a four and five on the scale, and using soap for a long time will wreck that balance."</p><p>"Huh, look at you, Mr Encyclopedia," she murmured, laughing a little so that it woke James and he startled, staring up at them. "I was making fun of your daddy, hush, baby. Finish up so we can get your brother."</p><p>Castle made another low noise and pressed his chin into the top of her head. She reached across James to awkwardly pat Castle's chest, and he sighed.</p><p>"Sounds good though," she told him. It was hard to think about hair care when everything else seemed so dire. When the world could come to an end. </p><p>She wondered if he was doing it on purpose, drawing her out past today. Making her think of the future, of putting herself in the future with these little projects. Restoring the pH balance of her hair or whether the boys were going to kindergarten - those things forced her to think about what happened next, what happened on an extended projection into the future.</p><p>The future was a little too much right now though.</p><p>"Want to switch?" he murmured. "Think he's done."</p><p>Kate roused and saw James was wriggling in her arms, a little more lively, little more awake. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, Wyatt's turn. Will you take him and-?"</p><p>"Yup, I got him. Come here, my man. Let's change your diaper first."</p><p>He lifted up from the bed with James in his arms, but he didn't go far. He barely moved, just enough away from her that she could lean forward and get Wyatt, but he settled James on his back on the bed, squatting before it so that he could still see her, close enough to touch.</p><p>She could not help remembering how very furious she'd made him. And not a healthy, righteous indignation, but the kind so filled with grief that he had lashed out, hurting, said things to her to wound her back. She'd pushed him too far.</p><p>And yet-</p><p>Here he was.</p><p>-----</p><p>It was only the four of them for breakfast in the dining hall downstairs, a double-sized conference room with a buffet set up on the far wall. Castle sat down with the boys at the table, neither of them in the high chair things that were pushed to one side of the door, both in chairs and struggling to see over the tabletop. Kate was going through the line making up two plates, and he watched her out of the corner of his eye.</p><p>"Okay, guys, listen up. Big day." James swiveled his head first, losing sight of his mother to look at Castle, face startled. Wyatt followed suit a half-beat behind, and now he had their attention for sure. "Yeah, serious talk, man to man... to man. Right?"</p><p>James tilted his head. "Daddy?"</p><p>"Look like your mom, kiddo. But yeah, it's important. Really important that we all cooperate and not pitch a fit about it. I mean - okay, you can cry a little, I get that, it might be kinda scary. Today will be like an adventure - a big tube, and it makes a really loud knocking noise, and it's really boring, I gotta admit. But I've done it a hundred times, and you can do it too."</p><p>"Daddy," Wyatt said with relish, slapping his palms on the table. He startled at the noise he'd made and then gave his father a sly grin. "Eep!"</p><p>"Not really a Jeep, Wyatt," he said dryly. "Good try. Table. Say table?"</p><p>"Buh-buh," Wyatt grunted, actually trying it, which impressed Castle.</p><p>"Good job, my man." He laid a hand over Wyatt's to still him. "But can we talk about Mommy for a second?"</p><p>"Mama?"</p><p>"That's right. Mommy is going to be... she might not be happy about the big tube. Or about you guys going in it either. It might make her really upset, and you guys might feel that. James, you listening? You might feel a lot from Mommy, but you're going to have to do your trick and shut that shit down. You think you can do that, Jay?"</p><p>"Ess," James said, a short little sound that Castle could swear was yes. Maybe not, not really, but damn it was a little freaky how good these boys were at figuring out their life, their reality.</p><p>From the corner of his eye, he saw Kate turn back for them, balancing two plates as she wound her way through the tables. </p><p>"Alright. This has been a good talk, guys." He reached out with both hands and patted the tops of their heads but James ducked and gave him a baleful look for it, while Wyatt beamed with pleased pride. </p><p>Kate was laughing at him when she approached, setting the plates down before the two boys. "I saw that. James, baby, I promise Daddy isn't being condescending. He's just proud of you."</p><p>Castle's breath left in a rush, and he lifted his eyes to her, unable to speak. He was proud, he was, and how did she just know that? How did she know him so that everything she did got him, touched his heart - either in a caress or a wound?</p><p>They had a connection, but he had a fucking connection to his brother, Colin, too, and it never came through like this. He was defenseless to Kate Beckett, and he didn't want to be defended.</p><p>"Go get your plate, Castle. I can wait here."</p><p>"I can get us both-?" he offered, clearing his throat. "I mean, tell me what you want, I'll get it. You can have kid wrangling duty."</p><p>She gave him a little smile, already having to reach over and snatch the knife from James, whose fine motor skills still weren't up to par with his brother's. "Yeah, okay. Yogurt and a couple pancakes? Plain. Oh, and they had bananas sliced up to go over them, so maybe that on the side if it's not too sweet. If it's sweet, ew, just - skip them. But oh, they have fruit at the end, so you could pick me out something. Just not oranges. I'm suck to death of citrus."</p><p>He beamed at her, standing just before the table with her hand in his pocket - she'd caught his pocket with her fingers to hold him there as she gave her order, and God did it feel so good to have her both want something and know exactly how particular she wanted it.</p><p>"Oh, shit," she blushed. "Too much. Just-"</p><p>"No. Not at all too much, baby."</p><p>"You can't remember all that-"</p><p>He leaned in close and kissed her roughly. "I'm a damn CIA operative, Beckett. I better fucking remember it."</p><p>She laughed, and Wyatt giggled as if tickled with them, and Castle straightened up again, heading for the buffet slowly enough that she could withdraw her hand from his pants' pocket.</p><p>Eye of the storm here, and they both knew it, but fuck it felt good to laugh with her, to be delighted and proud and take care of their kids like a team.</p><p>-----</p><p>Other people had strollers.</p><p>As they walked the blocks down to the lab where they were meeting Alex and Ben, she noticed that lots of people brought their babies out into the city, but they all had these narrow plastic strollers, simple and slim, a few with more robust jogging strollers, but at least something.</p><p>As it was, she had a bevy of adults to carry the boys, so it wasn't like they were hurting here. She just hadn't realized how  much shit went into two little kids and trying to keep track of them. She had sneaked boxes of Cheerios from the breakfast buffet to stuff into the bag for the boys if they got hungry, and when she'd opened it up, she had seen that Carrie had packed extra diapers and a couple of changes of clothes plus things Kate had never thought of. Things they'd run out of and made do without at the zoo yesterday.</p><p>Kate was their mother; she ought to think of these things. She wasn't exactly ashamed of her neglect - she was working on the fly here, no experience in the day to day - but it did bring her out of her own head. It was, at least, something else to think about, and strangely enough, thinking about a stroller or getting around the city for the day with two baby boys pulled her out into that hazy and unknown future.</p><p>Someone would have to figure out how to raise two kids in this city. Many people already had. Her parents had raised her here, and she loved it, she ached to love it again like she had.</p><p>To show the boys more than just the zoo, a playground, but to ride the subway to the end of the line, to hold their hands as they sat in the Planetarium, to usher them around the dinosaur bones in the Natural History Museum, to eat hot dogs from the cart on the block down the street. </p><p>The castle in the woods was beautiful and raw and wild like her own heart, but she wanted to want the city. She wanted it for the boys, that experience. And wanting it - that did something to her. That pulled her up out of her anxiety and panic over the upcoming MRI and it held her dangling over a pit of a different kind.</p><p>Life. Life itself.</p><p>And what happened if this wasn't the nice, peaceful ending she'd planned for herself? What happened if life happened?</p><p>"Mommy?"</p><p>"Yeah, James," she murmured absently, hurrying to match her stride with Castle's. She caught the boy's hand and kissed his palm, reassuring them both.</p><p>Castle was here. At least that. She didn't know how or why or what happened, but all of her contingency plans included him, and he was still here.</p><p>"Mommy, suuu."</p><p>"Shoe?" she laughed, glancing down at his feet. His bare feet clad only in little socks. They didn't even have fucking shoes, oh God. </p><p>"Shit, they don't even have shoes, do they?" Castle groaned.</p><p>She shook her head, glanced over at Mark who carried Wyatt. "No. They don't. But I don't think he was calling our attention to our negligent parenting."</p><p>Castle grunted. "No, pretty sure they're happy with whatever they get. Fucking sad as that is, also good for us."</p><p>She nodded and pressed herself against his side as they walked, kissing James in close.</p><p>"Mommy, suu."</p><p>"Yeah, baby, I'm sorry. I don't really know what you're saying."</p><p>But he smiled shyly at her and ducked his head into Castle's chest, and just her attention seemed enough.</p><p>"Shit, we're here. I see Colin."</p><p>She lifted her head and sure enough, his brother was just down the block, hands on his hips, eyes narrowed against the sun as they approached. Colin came forward to meet them, took Wyatt out of Eastman's hands just like that.</p><p>"Hey, Alex and Ben haven't arrived yet. But it's been dark all night. I did a check when I got here, no one inside, looks like merely diagnostics - MRI machine, X-ray machine, something that looked like a barium lab, and then the usual lab stuff. No surgery suite. A few meds, no elixir."</p><p>"We're supposedly going to the vault after this," Kate told him. "Anne is going to take me and Castle - just us - to get the last of the elixir. Or whatever they've managed to stockpile."</p><p>Castle nodded, shifting James in his arms so he could put a hand to her back. "We should go on inside, be settled before they get here. Col, you have keys or something?"</p><p>"Do I have keys," he snorted. He turned and led the way through a bland-looking reception area, much like a normal doctor's office, and of course, the moment she stepped inside after Castle, her heart was in her throat.</p><p>"Here," Castle murmured, tilting James towards her. "Have the baby. He can help."</p><p>"I don't want to - infect him with my-"</p><p>But before she could even finish speaking, James had cuddled up to her chest, spreading heat out through her bones, soporific and heavy.</p><p>"See?" Castle said softly. "We had a talk, me and James. And he knows what to do."</p><p>-----</p>
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